#but it was impossible to find any reseller who has different cards

[banqanas]

anyway. :)))

this is banan binch who is so desperate to see the BOT illustrations with her own eyes and at this point does not care about duplicates and will be getting uh.

3 copies of the same Keito, Sota, Yusei

2 copies Horinacchan, Sawanatsu, Leiya

[chaos-and-recover]

Let’s all hug it out and not stress about  getting tickets tomorrow

Hi! I know we’re all hype as hell about My Chem being back and also anxious as fuck about the North American tour going on sale tomorrow, but let me tell you a few things, based on two decades of buying concert tickets and 14 years of selling them, including 4 at one of the arenas they’re playing on this tour.

1. There are no presales*, and that’s great for us.

Most tours these days have at least a fanclub presale, some have fanclub and LiveNation and Facebook and credit card restricted (think Amex Front-Of-The-Line or Citi card) like 4 different radio station presales. Each of these presales has an allotment of tickets, which takes away from what’s actually available by the public onsale. They also create more stress for us, and usually aren’t even all that exclusive if you know ANYTHING about the band (the passwords are so, so often just the name of the latest album or the name of their biggest song, try it for your favourite band next time, you’ll be surprised how often it works). But there aren’t any* for MCR! And that’s excellent! We’re looking at full capacities (minus various contractual holds) being available starting tomorrow.

*Not including PSL offers for certain season seat holders for whichever NHL or NBA team plays in that venue. Mine offers some premium season seat owners to purchase their seats for concerts ahead of the general public, but only premium seats, and only some, based on their season ticket contract and whether that’s grandfathered into it. 

2. It won’t sell out immediately. They’ll tell you it will. Don’t believe it.

Tomorrow, once you’re in Ticketmaster and have gone through the queue, you  might get a page that tells you there are no tickets available. Do not exit Ticketmaster. Refresh the page! Once you’re through the queue, you will actually have a certain number of re-directs you’re allowed before you’re kicked back into the line. No tickets available do not mean they’ve all sold, it means a) there’s a problem with the site (lol) or b) they’re all in other people’s carts. Not all of those people will complete their sales. Cards get rejected. People forget passwords (for the love of GOD log into your TM account before you do ANYTHING. Make sure your card info is up to date and that you have enough money on it. Save yourself the disappointment). Carts timeout and systems crash. Sucks for those people! Now their tickets are back out there for you.

The radio and news and social media is all gonna say “Sold out in 3 minutes!” This is a bold-faced lie. I recently bought tickets during a presale after spending about 5 minutes in the queue, completing my sale 10 minutes after the presale opened, and then hearing for DAYS about how the presale sold out in 90 seconds. Obviously the fuck it didn’t.

Speaking of the queue, I can only imagine you’re gonna get stuck in one tomorrow. If you don’t buy a lot of tickets or haven’t bought a ticket to a high-traffic show in a minute, you might not know what the queue is. It’s a virtual system for managing traffic to the Ticketmaster site so their servers aren’t overloaded. If you click Buy Tickets before noon, you’ll get sent to a virtual waiting room. At noon, the queue will open and you’ll be randomly assigned a place in line -- it literally doesn’t matter when you join the waiting room. You could get there at 11:59 and end up closer to the front of the line than someone who went on as soon as the waiting room opened (usually 1/2-1hr before on-sale). Don’t stress about it.

3. Don’t panic and fuck up your purchase

If you get tickets you want, you have like 10 minutes to complete your purchase. Doesn’t sound like a lot but, honestly, it is. Just go slow. Make sure you fill everything out properly. Better yet, if you have credit card information saved on your TM account, it’s even faster. Keep an eye on that lil clock in the corner, but take your time.

And don’t waste your money protecting your purchase, it’s almost impossible to get a refund through that if you can’t go, don’t bother. Just sell your tickets.

4. On that note, don’t buy third party

It’s possible that I’m wrong and it’ll sell out (or appear to sell out) in a matter of minutes. Don’t go running to Stubhub or Seatgeek or Viagogo or wherever else the kids are buying tickets these days. Your seats are not guaranteed. They aren’t ‘yours.’ You might get turned away at the venue because someone else came with the same tickets and already went inside, or the owner transferred them to someone else after you bought them and now yours aren’t valid. Usually, when you buy a concert ticket on a third party site, what you’re getting is a PDF that the original owner downloaded and then posted. They still have full control over the ticket and they can do that as many times as they want, or transfer it out of their account. Whoever’s name is on the account in the primary ticketing system is who owns that ticket. It won’t matter to the venue staff how much you spent or where you got it. If your name isn’t on the account they can see, they can’t help you.

You’re also gonna be paying exorbitant markups, and I very much do not recommend that. Every few years someone tries to find a way to keep scalpers from getting tickets, and it never works. The only way to stop ticket brokers and resellers is if people just stop fuckin buying from them. So don’t do it.

But if you must go third-party, insist that the seller transfers the ticket to you through Ticketmaster (or LiveNation). Do not buy from some rando on Facebook or whatever who won’t transfer it. On that note, be skeptical of randos on social media selling tickets because they “can’t go.” Check event pages for other dates, or other events in your area. I guarantee you’ll find the same names offering tickets for sale because they can’t go. Don’t buy from them.

Buy Verified Resale through Ticketmaster if you have to, but because then the ticket is transferred to you and you’re protected (you can still get turned away if the original account was flagged for fraud, but you’ll get your money back). You’ll still be paying absurd markups plus higher-than-normal Ticketmaster fees. Don’t let ‘em get you twice.

5. Be patient. “Sold out” never means sold out.

Here’s a tip that’ll come in handy for every show you go to for the rest of your life: We, as box office staff, can almost never use the phrase “sold out.” We’ll tell you there are no tickets available, but not that it’s sold out. Because it isn’t. So if you can’t get tickets tomorrow, or even just can’t get seats you’re happy with, don��t run to the third parties. Just relax, be patient, be happy for your friends who did get tickets, and then bide your time.

Tickets, sometimes entire sections worth of them, are held back from sale all the time. Some of those are for guest list, radio contests, promotions, and whatever else. If they’re not used, they’ll go up for sale, because why not get the butts in the seats? There are also production kills that are held back until the tour actually goes into production, sometimes right up until load-in when the roadies start building the set and then the promoter realizes, oh shit, that section right on the side there? It’s not actually blocked! It’s got a killer view! Let’s sell those seats! 

I’ve scored some of the best seats I’ve ever had at big shows the day before.

They’re always really conservative about what gets put up for sale because it’s easier to sell them later than to find relocations for seats you sold and then realized they’re obstructed (ask me about the nightmare that was Maroon 5′s last tour some time (:)

Artist tickets probably won’t get released until, like, an hour before gates open, and I’d be surprised if many shows had any left since everyone and their uncle will come crawling out of the woodwork asking for tickets, but you never know. 

tl;dr, don’t get too worked up over the on-sale tomorrow. Be patient. Be  calm. We’ll get through this together, and we’ll all be able to see My Chem without lining the pockets of rich-ass ticket brokers.

[teshknowledgenotes]

HOW I BUILT THIS - GUY RAZ

What I love most about starting your own business is the journey of coming up with a big idea and turning it into something tangible, though it would take me until my late thirties to start to feel even a tinge of confidence about some of my ideas or my ability to execute them. For most of my career before then, I struggled with the kinds of worries I thought charismatic entrepreneurs never confronted: anxiety, fear, imposter syndrome, even depression. But over the course of my time doing deep-dive interview with hundreds of busienss founders and CEO's for my shows, I've come to understand that, for the most part, they are just like you and me. Which is to say, they're human. They all have sleepless nights and midnight terrors. Most of them, at some point, feel like omposters. They are not natural superheroes, they are all Clark Kents. The only difference between them and you, at this moment, is that when opportunity presented itself, they went into the phone booth and put on the cape. They took the leap. That's basically it.

PART I: THE CALL

1) BE OPEN TO IDEAS People start businesses for all kinds of reasons. They do it to satisfy a dream or so solve a problem or to fill a void in the market. Some people want to improve on something that seems obsolete, and others want to reinvent an entire industry. There are literally dozens of on ramps to the entrepreneurial journey. But no matter which one you take, at some point you are to need an idea. Something specific. Something concrete and unique and new. An idea that makes life better or more intersting and delivers on the reason you wanted to start a business in the first place.

Sounds simple enough right? After all, ideas are a dime a dozen. Or atleast that's what many of us are led to believe. That ideas are easy and abundant. That what matters is execution. And all of that is true to some extent. It's just not the whole truth, because coming up with a good idea is hard. Good ideas are hard to find and hard to get right. But once you find one, they are also very hard to turn away from. That what makes good ideas so initimidating. Not that you won't ever find one, but that one day you will, and when you do, it's very possible that your life will never be the same again.

So where do you find one of these good ideas? Where do you look? Can you look? Or do you have to wait for the angels to sing in your ear and the light bulb to go on over your head? Some people are lucky, and this epiphany happens for them early. An idea hits them out of the blue and sends them on their way. For most of us, though, it isn't so simple. We have to look for a good idea, or at least be open to receiving it.

It's one of the eternal entrepreneurial questions: Can you actually find a good idea, or does it have to find you? The answer it the same for both option: yes. The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of start up ideas, it's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself, It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. - Paul Graham There is a name for a person who creates something purely out of passion: hobbyist. There is a name for a person who creates something out of passion that solves a problem only they have: tinkerer. There is a name for a person who creates something out of passion that also solves a problem they share with lots of other people: entrepreneur.

2) IS IS DANGEROUS OR JUST SCARY?

Michael Dell the creator of Dell at the age of 19, was told by his parents not to start a business and to focus on school. For Michael's parents coming from a family of well-educated people at a time when personal computing was mostly a curiosity that was often dismissed as a fag, leaving school to tinker with computers and resell them must have felt like their son was in danger of throwing his life away. What is more dangerous to a parent than a child taking their first steps out onto the high wire act of adulthood and doing so without a net?

But for Michael, there was nothing at all dangerous about his idea. He loved working on computers. He knew them well enough as a teenager that professional adults with even more to lose than he did trusted his insight and his work. He was solving their problems. Moreover, having found early success and having seen what was on the other side of this big leap, it was impossible to go back and see the world in the same way again, to ever again see it as his parents had. He knew the rules of this new world, and becaues of that, any last vestiges of danger melted away. And, hey if it didn't work out for whatever reason, he could always just go back to school and slot right back into the premed program. He was nineteen years old, he had his entire life ahead of him. The reality was the scariest part of starting Dell Computer Corportaion was the same thing that is scary about starting any business: it's the unknown. What did a teenage Michael Dell know about running a business? About hiring? About leading people? About find and leasing office space? About corportate taxes? 

What do any of us know about that stuff before we confront it? Nothing. That is truly terrifying to the first-time entrepreneur. But it is also eminently knowable, if you choose to learn it. Even though it comes from an old French word "entrepreneurship" is a fairly new term in the vocabulary of business. Founders today self-identify as entrepreneurs in a way that the generations who came before them struggle to understand, mostly because they didn't have the language back then to describe what they were doing as they built their businesses. Fundamentally though they were doing the same thing. They were taking the detour, taking the leap away from the type of professional life they didn't want, and toward something new and exciting and their own.

As a group they have made entrepreneurship both less scary and less dangerous. By developing a lexicon for the process of starting a business, by giving it a name, many of the modern founders whom you will meet in this book have helped to demystify the prospect of taking the leap. By breaking new ground, the older generation of foudners of which Jim and Mike are a part have made taking the leap seem almost normal.

They are why you can trust the rope threaded through your harness by experts and counterweighted by mentors, and have fait that the anchors hammered into the cliff face by those who came before you will hold, as you take that first big step backward off the cliff and into the unknown. Because they know what it means to take you fate into your own hands and to feel that you've got a real grip on this idea that has it's own grip on your soul.

3)LEAVE YOUR SAFETY ZONE... BUT DO IT SAFELY

There is something romantic about the struggle to do something new, isn't there? About taking the leap. At one point or another, all of us who are enamored of the pursuit of big ideas have ourselves enthralled by the origin story of a successful enterprise: the marathon coding sessions, the all-nighters that stretch across an entire week, the four friends stacked on top of one another inside a one bedroom apartment, meeting every evening at the kitchen table in the "boardroom". In commencement addresses and keynote speeches, famous founders talk wistfully about these memorable and crucial moments. Being down to their last dollar, maxing out their credit cards, eating nothing but ramen noodles and drinking nothing but Mountain Dew for months on end.

Those were the good old days.

There are some people who find those stories exhilarating, others, terrifying. For the longest time, I would have counted myself as one of the latter. And to an extent, I still do. I mean, what kind of maniac would just throw caution to the wind as Reid described? Who in their right mind would ever take such a huge risk? If building a company or creating something big and new is like jumping off a cliff and hoping to put enough pieces together before it, and you, die a horrible death, the question I always want to ask founders and creators is, Why do it? 

What are you thinking? Why whould you ever jump? Most of the successful entrepreneurs I've met left the comfort of their previous lives as safely and smartly as possible. And they did this in one of two ways: either they stayed in their "real jobs" until their startups demanded more time than they could spare, or they went for it with a fallback plan in their hip pocket, which made the risks inherent in entrepreneurship manageable enought for them to be able to sleep at night.

Having a fallback plan does not mean you are building an escape hatch from your dream. It's not an excuse not to try hard, nor is it a ready made reason to quit. It just means you've give yourself a cushion at the bottom of your entrepreneurial leap of faith that if you do crash, you can bounce back to fight another day.

4) DO YOUR RESEARCH

5) FIND YOUR CO-FOUNDER Many of the same founders I talked about at the beginning of this chapter, whom we have now elevated to godlike status in our culture, have talked openly about the importance of the partners they had in their early fight to bring their ideas to fruition, many of them while the fight was still happening.

"My best business decisions really have to do with picking people" Bill Gates said in a 1998 conversation with Warren Buffett on the campus of the University Of Washington. "Deciding to go into partnership with Paul Allen is probably at the top of the list, having somedboy who you totally trust, who's totally committed, who shares your vision and yet has a little big different set of skills, and also acts as a check on you, and just the benefit of sparking off of somebody who's got that kind of brilliance, it'snot only made it fun, but it's really led to a lot of success"

In a 1985 Playboy interview, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs talked about the importance of both his partner Steve Wozniak's differing interests and their shared lack of a vision. "Neither of us had any idead that this would go anywhere, Woz  was motivated by figuring things out. He concentrated more on the engineering and proceeded to do one of his most brillian pieces of work, which was the disk drive that made the Apple II a possibility. I was trying to build the company, I don't think it would have happened without Woz and I don't think it would have happened without me" Jobs said.

The power of partnership is not just a modern tech phenomenon. Partnerships are a hallmark in the history of innovation, regardless of the industry. Many of them are cultural icons we know by the name on the door: Ben and Jerry. Hewlett and Packard. Harley and Davidson. Wells and Fargo. Procter and Gamblr. Aso for Warren Buffett and his part in that conversation with Bill Gates in 1998, he was in complete agreement about the importance of picking people: "I've had a partner like that, Charlie Munger, for a lot of years, and it does for me exactly what Bill is talking about."

6) FUND THE BUSINESS, PART 1: BOOTSTRAPPING

7) GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT Telling your story is a more cost-effective way to take your advertiseing beyond usefulness and effiacacy and efficiency as topics of conversation. It's like a growth hack that enables consumers to connect to your brand in a deeper, more personal way, which is a big part of how you differentiate and de-commodify your product, create brand loyalty, and set yourself up for long term success. While many legacy companies struggle to see the innovation and origin stories right under their noses, it is nevertheless as true for them as it is for young upstart brands that their busienss is a story, that every business is astory. The store, more than anything else, is what connects you and me and everyone out there to the thing you're building. And every defining element of that thing you're building, of that business, helps to tell its story. This goes from the name and the logo, to the function of the product or the style of the service to the partners that founded it, all the way to the customers who partronize it. The purpose of that story changes with time and with whom it is being told to, but fundamentally its goal is to answer a hundred different variations on the simple question: Why?

Why should i buy your product? Why should I join this company? Why should I be excited to work here? Why should I invest in this company?

These are just a few of the variations identified by Ben Horowitz the brilliant tech entrepreneur, best selling author, and co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He describe in 2010 how his company evaluates CEO's, whose main job, he contends it to be "the keeper of the vision and the story" A few years later, in talking to Forbes, Horowitz put the role of the company's story even more succinctly: "The story must explain at a fundamental level why you exist." It is a story you have to tell to you customers, to investors, to employees, and ultimately to yourself. Kind of in that order, in fact, from the bottom up, like the old food pyramid or Maslow's legendary hierarchy of needs.

One of the reasons for this approach seem prettty obvious: in most markets there are already plenty of options to choose from, so you need to give us a really compelling reason why we should choose yours. And in the cases where you're making something no on has ever seen before, when you're creating an entirely new market, it's not always immediately clear what we have been missing. As such, you need to tell us why we need to choose anything new at all. The other, slightly more complicated reason you need a terrific story is that there are so many other questions one could ask in an effort to understand why you exist, and your current answers don't reveal very much: what you do, where you dot it, how you do it, whom you do it for. Those are just discoverable facts. I can search for them on Google. I can buy market research reports. I can hire someone to reverse engineer your product or go through your process. I can read books and articles about all of it.

But the key here is: Why do you do what you do? Or, Why should we care? I can't know the answers to those questions until you, as the founder want me to know them, because they exist first in your mind. And like most concepts that are unquantifiable, the answers to these basic questions are suually best understood and best shared with the world through a story.

Whitney Wolfe has a story. She knows it well. To hear her tell it is to get to know her and the history of her dating app, Bumble. It is to know what she is trying to do with her app, why we should all care about it, and how it has managed to succeed despite the fact that by the end of 2014, when Bumble was launched, if there was one thing the world didn't need any more of, it was dating apps. There was already Match.com, Plenty Of Fish, IkCupid, eHarmony, and Hinge, along with all the niches sites, such as Jdate, BlackPlanet, Christian Mingle, and way on the other end of the spectrum. SeekingArrangment and Ashley Madinson.

And then there was Tinder, the behemoth, which Whitney founded in 2012 and had recently left under some of the worst possible circumstances not just for a co-founder but for a woman and a human being. There was both a professinoal and a romantic split with one of her co-founders, there was a very public sexual harassment lawsuit, and there was an avalanche of despicably hurtful online vitriol aimed directly at her. By the time she left Tinder in early 2014, Whitney wasn't just done with the dating business, she was done, period.

The stories of Bumble & AirBnB are unique to themselves, but what is true across industries and across time is that all businesses are stories, and all stories are a process. They are a mechanism for thinking deeply about yourself, your product or service, your employees, your customers, your market and the world. They explain each to all the others in a way that facts and figures never can.

Ben Horowitz is right knowing your story and being able to clearly articulate to the world why you exist is one of your most important challenges as an entrepreneur. Not because it helps you sell more product, or build a cooler brand, or make your money through all those things are true.

Rather the basic story that answers the big "why" questions is the one that creates loyal customers, find the best investors, builds an employee culture that keeps them committed to the venture and keeps you committed and grinding away when things get really hard and you want to give (and you will). There are a millions reasons for any one of these groups to quit or to say no. Your job is to give them one of the few reasons to them the story, that gets them to keep listening and to say yes.

8) FUND THE BUSINESS, PART 2: OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY(OPM)

Some people have distinct, tangible advantages that make it easier for them to pull together enough OPM to get their businesses on solid footing and pointed in the right direction. Recognition of this fact, especially for the entrepreneurs who enjoyed some of those advntages going in, is why I always ask my podcast guests how much they attribute their success to both luck and hark work. 

Acknowledging privilege and recognizing advantage are essential to understanding the nature of success, both yours and others. That does not mean privilege should define or predertermine success, any more than lack of privilege should preclude it. While not everyone has the same privilege of circumstance, everyone has intangible advantages of one kind or another that they can leverage in pursuit of success. Personality is an advantage. Will is an advantage. Likability, unflappability, resilience, having a good memory, those are all advantages that anyone who possesses them can use much the way anyone who possesses privilege uses theirs.

But where does that really leave those of us who may not be lucky enough to have a parent who can write a $10,000 check compared with those whose parents casually carry around $10,000 in cash? It doesn't leave us in the same place, but it does put us in the same race on the same track. Although out access to money differs, the process for securing it is the same, no matter who we are, where we live, how we grew up, or what we're trying to build. In every case, a conversation takes place in which a founder has to describe what they're trying to do and then ask another person for some amount of money, in the form of investment, loan, gift, whatever, to help them get there.

Here's where those early fundraising stories from the priviledged and the less-than-privileged start to sound surprisingly alike. To a person, all of these entrepreneurs will tell you that fundraising is brutally hard at every level. It taxes your time, your energy, your ego, and sometimes your relationships. You will have hundreds of conversations. You will have to tell your story hundreds of times and answer ten times as many questions, a lot of them the same, some of them invredibly frustrating, especially form people who think are supposed to support you or whom you have always called a friend. You are going to need a thick skin, like the heat shield on a space shuttle trinyg to punch through the incredible resistance of the surrounding atmosphere and not break apart. This is true whether you are blue blooded or blue-collar, just as it is true that this process starts the same way for everyone, with a conversation, with the people you know.

First a parent, then an uncle, then a family friend, then a mentor, then maybe a kid you went to high school with who also started their own business, and on and on from there, until you've exhausted your total personal network and have, by then hopefully, raised all the money you need. I think about it like a series of concentric circles. You start with the circle of people who are closest to you, the people who names you don't have to dig to the bottom of your contacts to find, because they're right there in your text messages and the call log on your phone. Maybe you start with a best friend and as to borrow a few hundred dollars. Does your friend know someone, a relative, possibly whom you can call for a little more, maybe $500? Does that relative know of someone interested in helping out a startup like yours?

The lesson here is that despite the sometimes daunting advantages that privilege can cofer, this process for raising early money really is available to anyone. Everyone exists at the centre of their own set of concentric circles. The built-in advantages or privilege do not change their shape, they only reduce the number of outer circles one might need to explore to reach one's fundraising goals. And that, comes to OPM and entrepreneurship, whic which I mean, once someone has raised money, even if it was easy for them and there is more where that came from, they still have to do something with it. I can't point to a single example of an entrepreneur I've profiled who raised a bunch of friends and family money early on and then merely sat back, resting on their privilege, to watch their business grow organically with no effort.

9) ITERATE, ITERATE, ITERATE

Take a look around you right now. At the seat you're sitting on. The shirt you're wearing. The light bulbs illuminating the space you're in. The phone in your pocket. Maybe the earbuds in your ears. Even the cover of this book you're reading or listening to.

If these items have anything in common, it is that none of them looked like they do now when they were first conceived by the people who invented or designed them. And that' because a lot happens between conception and first production for nearly every idea that gets turned into a business. Shape changes. Materials change. Offerings change. Names change. Process changes. Construction methods change. Look and feel and tast change.

Typically there are two phases to the iterative process prior to launch. The first involves tinkering with your idea until it works and you, as its creator, are satisfied with what you have. The second entails exposing the working idea to the public and tweaking the product based o ntheir feedback until it catches on, either with a buyer, a major investor, a retail partner, or a critical mass of your customers.

As the creator of AllBirds, Time made clear was that it's important to spend enough time in this first phase to really get comfortable with your product and your story and really get to know the business you're trying to build. Tim, arguably, spent five productive years there. Whitney Wolfe, in contrast, took less than a year to get the version of Bumble out into the world and onto people's phones, in part because she already knew the busienss from her time at Tinder and she'd lived every moment of the Bumble story from the day she left Tinder for good. The exact amount of time you spend in the first phase of development isn't as important as making sure you don't get stuck there for too long. Every idea, no matter how great, has a shelf life. If you don't get it off that shelf and out into the world in time, no amount of feedback you get during the second phase of the iterative process can overcome a lack of insterest or mitigate first mover advantage if someone beats you to the punch.

Moving to phase two can be tough for people who don't handle criticism well, or who are dogged by that familiar yet unattainable form of perfectionsism that has trapped the next great American novel on the desks or hard drives of countless aspiring writers since forever. Like asking friends and family for money, exposing your idea and all your hard work to feedback can be very uncomfortable, which can make the first phase of internal development feel like a safe space out of which you would rather not poke your head until you're absolutely sure. Except "absolutely sure" doesn't exist.

I would love to tell you a story about an entrepreneur who suceeded in spite of the paralysis of their perfectionism, but I don't have one, because such people generally don't create companies. The creators and innovators who I meet, if they do struggle with criticism and perfectionism, also understand the importance of allowing their product to be judged by the marketplace, and the opportunity that users' feedback presents to make the product better as a result. They know that they need an abundance of feedback to dial in their product. They actively seek it out, in fact. Because while they know what they want to do, and they know why and how they want to do it, they also know that they have no idea if anyone will actually like what they're making. And that's always essential to keep in mind.

PART II THE TESTS

Most of the entrepreneurs I've interviewed have a healthy fear of failure. They konw it's possible at any moment. Even likely. When it happens, and believe me it will happen they certainly don't like it. It's not comfortable, and it's definetely not fun. But that never stops them.

Good entrepreneurs, succesful ones, have a way of not letting their fear of failure slow them down. They are defined instead by a seemingly inextinguishable belief in their idea, the idea that has pulled them out of their comfort zone and driven them across the unknown to explore new possiblities. 

They are convinced that, if they can just get there (where "there" is), if they can just get their idea off the ground, it will succeed. If. That's really what entrepreneurs fear at this stage. The uncertainty of whether they wil be able to cross that vast space between inspiration and execution, full of tests and traps, twists and turns. A gauntlet that every entrepreneur must pass through, with challenges that are generally the same for everyone, but that take different forms and present in a different order with each trip across the unknown territory of starting a business.

Indeed, every entrepreneurial journey is a new and different story. No two paths are the same. Everyone will proceed through many of the same pivotal points, but your path will inevitably be unique to you, to your idea, and to the time and place through which it passes.

Fortunately, it's never been easier to make this journey than it is right now. So many entrepreneurs have done what you are about to do. You have the chance to prepare for what's coming your way, if you are willing to learn from these unwitting helpers. They've made every mistake. They've falled into every trap. They've taken every wrong turn. And the good ones, the successful one, only made those mistakes, fell into those traps, took those wrong turns, once. 

Because they borrowed from the entrepreneurs who came before them as well. They heard the stories and learned the lessons. Now it's your turn.

10) GO IN THROUGH THE SIDE DOOR

Most new businesses aren't doing something completely novel or aren't doing it in a totally new way or new place, you should be thinking long and hard about how else you might enter your market besides knocking on the front door and asking for permission to come in. This is something that female and minority entrepreneurs have long had to contend with, whether it means breaking through glass ceilings or breaking down walls built by prejudice. All of which is to say, figuring out how to sneak in through the side door is not new ground you will have to break. A legion of resourceful geniuses have come before you. And what many of them have discovered is that the side door isn't just less heavily guarded, it's often bigger. Or as Peter Thiel put it in a 2014 lecture at the Standford Center for Professional Development titles "Competition is for losers" "Don't always go through the tiny little door that everyone's trying to rush through. Go around the corner and go through the vast gate that no one's taking"

For Manoj Bhargava, the founder of 5-hour Energy, his side door into the energy drink market did not take the shape of a small niche, but rather of a small product. In early 2003, a few years removed from his retirement from a plastics business he'd turned around and profitable, Manoj was attending a natural products trade show outside Los Angeles looking for inventions he might acquire or license in an efford to create a business that would generate an ongoing residual income stream for him in his post plastic years.

Walking the floor of the show, he stumbled upon a new sixteen ounce energy drink that produced long-lasting effects he'd never experienced with other energy drinks "Well this is amazing", he said to himself, exhausted from a long morning of meetings and now energized enough to continue walking the trade show floor. "I could sell this" He thought. The drink's creators disagreed. They were "science guys with PhDs" while he was "just a lowly business guy". They refused to sell their invention to him or even offer him a license on their formula. When they effectively told him to hit the road, Manoj decided to hit the lab instead and to create his own version of the energy drink that had fueled him up and blown him away.

"I looked at their label and said, I can do better than this. How hard can it be? I'll figure it out." Manoj said. With the help of scientists from a company he'd founded for the express purpose of finding inventions just like this one, he had a comparable energy drink formula in a matter of months. It would turn out to be the easiest part of the process.

The hard part would be getting his invention into stores "If I made another drink" Manoj said of his thinking at the time, "I've got to fight for space in the cooler against Red Bull and Monster Energy. I've also got to fight Coke, Pepsi, and Budweiser for space. So you're pretty much dead if you want to try that. He was dead because he would be fighting for a finite amount of space in brick and mortar stores, against the compeition not just in his own niche but in the entire beverage industry, which is dominated by some of the biggest companies in the world. If you own a 7-Eleven or you're the gneral manager of a grocery chain like Kroger or Tesco, are you really going to turn over a Diet Coke, Mountain Dew, or Snapple rack to a new energy drink that on one has every heard of? Especially when, in 2003, in energy drink sales had yet to really spike and there were already two major players, Red Bull and Monster energy, in the nascent market. Even if you were inclined to give a little guy like Manoj Bhargava a shot, once the regional sales reps and distributors from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo got wind of your decision, they would likely wield their Microsoftesque price discretion against you like a baseball bat, or just pull their products from your store altogether.

Those were the barriers to entry that Manoj was looking at. If he was going to get into this market, he'd have to find some other way. That's when it dawned on him. "If I'm tired why am I thirsty also?" By which he meant, why should we have to chug ten to sixteen ounces of a cloyingly sweet liquid in order to get an energy boost? "It would be like Tylenol selling sixteen-ounce bottles", Manoj explained by way of analogy. "I just want to do it quick. I don't want to drink this whole thing", he thought. This is how Manoj arrived at the idea of shrinking his product down from the standard sixteen-ounce drink to a two-ounce shot.

Quickly, everything changed. In less than six months, he'd hired a designer to make his distinctive label, and he'd found a bottler who could produce two ounce versions of his energy formula. "And at two ounces, it's really not a drink, it's a delivery system"

This was 5-hour Energy's side door. It wasn't a drink, so it wasn't an immediate threat to Red Bull or Monster Energy. At two ounces, it also didn't need to be refigerated or given a large, dedicated shelf, so retailers didn't have to worry about space. They understood that the perfect spot for it would be at the cash register, right next to the Slim Jims and pickled eggs!

"It just belonged there" Manoj said "You could tell it just looked that way that it should be there" Moreover because the ingredients that way, that it should be there." Moreover, because the ingredients that went into 5-hour Energy were actually less about energy and more about focus, "vitamins for the brain". He could position his product beyond the beverage verticals and outside the grocery or convenience store channels. In fact, the very first place he went with 5-hour Energy in 2004 was the largest vitamin store, GNC, which decided to put the product in a thousand of its stores.

GNC turned out to be a genius side door into the energy "drink" market for a couple reasons. The first is obvious, there was much less competition compared with grocery and convenience stores, but the second is more interesting. "It turns out GNC is always looking for new products, because once a product gets mass distribution, GNC is sort of out of it, if it's in Walmart, nobody's going to buy it at GNC" Essentially, GNC was an easier route to retail distribution than a place like 7-Eleven or Safeway, and thankfully the tolerance for a slow start was higher as well, because in the first week they sold only 200 bottles. "Which was horrible" Manoj admitted. But they waited it out, manufacturer and retailer together, "and at the end of six months it was selling 10,000 bottles a week" 

From there Manoj went to drugstores like Walgreens and Rite Aid, which snapped it up, now a 5-hour Energy is near the cash register in most stores basically everywhere.

This is the great irony of circumventing the barriers to entry that your competitions's apparent monopoly power constructs and then fighting you way in through the side door. If you're successful, you stand a very good chance of achieving market domination of your own. Of digging and widening your own moat and building the toll that bridge that crosses it. Of massive, unbelievable success. For many entrepreneurs, that is the goal.

11) IT'S ALL ABOUT LOCATION

12) GET ATTENTION, PART 1: BUILDING BUZZ If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I think there is a business analog to that: If a company opens it's doors and no one hears about it, does it ever really exist? Or is it just one of the 170,000 new businesses that year that didn't make it to its first birthday and whose existence you can only infer from a table of numbers in a Bureaur of Labor Statistics Report?

The answer, I believe, is of course it existed! If you took that leap off the cliff while attempting to build your own airplane on the way down, you deserve to be known. But as the builder of that plane, it's also your job to be the creator of the buzz from that plane's engines.

It's your job to make sure that the sound of your doors opening reaches past your front steps and far enough out into the world for potential customers to hear it. It's your job to get attention for the product or the service you are bringing to the market.

It's usually not easy, and you are going to need help from all forms of media to make it happen, because like Jen Rubio said, nobody wants to hear you talk about yourself. But it's doable, particularly when you are able to build buzz among many possible customers while at the same time engineering work of mouth among your ideal customers.

Take one look around you at all the things you observed at the start of this chapter. The people who made these products were sending a version of their idea out into the world that they could stand behind and that could itself stand up to the criticism they were inviting. That is the real recipe for success in the iterative process, and one every creator needs to get right if they want to turn their idea not just into a product, but into a business that is poised for real, sustained growth.

13) GET ATTENTION PART 2: ENGINEERING WORD OF MOUTH

14) SURVIVE THE CRUCIBLE

15) FUND THE BUSINESS, PART 3: PROFESSIONAL MONEY

The first thing to understand is that raising venture capital is about making a promise. A promise that you have a product or a service that people will pay money for, that you have a plan to reach as many of those people as possible, and that in exchange for lots of moeny, you will bust your butt to reach them. The next thing to understand is that good investors know the promise you are making to them is just that, a promise. They know you can't make any guarantees. You can do everything right, but if the world shifts under your feet, there's nothing you can do about it. Venture capital is by its nature a gamble, it's right there in the name, and every gamble comes with the risk of heavy losses. Professional investors know and accept this fact, which is why the also do everything they can to mitigate the risk before writing very large checks.

One of the principal ways they do this, especially if they are unfamiliar with your industry, is to ask lots of questions:

How do you expect to scale this? Where is the growth going to come from? Who is the customer for this? Doesn't something like this already exist? How will you get costs down? Where will you manufacture? Where will you be based? What's your marketing strategy? Why does anyone need this? Why would anyone do this?

16) PROTECT WHAT YOU'VE BUILT

17) WHEN CATASTROPHE STRIKES

18) THE ART OF THE PIVOT

PART III THE DESTINATION In many ways, the scariest part of entrepreneurship is success. It's reaching your destination, your objective. Because that's when the work really starts. Why you've got to decide: What now? What next? Do you keep moving and do it again? Do you stick around? Do you build? What do you build? How big? With what? And why? Getting here was difficult enough. The anxiety that comes with the responsibility of continue success isn't making things any easier. Why continue to put yourself through all this?

These questions are difficult to answer. And the answers are often hard to get exactly right. Because in the beginning, all you're worried about is trying to survive. You're not aiming for perfection, you're just hoping to avoid pitfalls. You're not thinking about legacy, you're just focused on lasting one more day in your quest across the unknown.

Eventually, though, these questions will become paramount if you want to ubild a business that stands the test of time. Something more than just a vessel for the idea that drove you in the beginning. Something that reflects you mission and your values, that honors all the work you put in, and that treats the people who helped you get here well.

Figuring out your answers to these questions is also what will make you feel successful, no matter what your next move is: whether you stay and build and lead, whether you go, whether you move on and try to repeat your success in another area. If you're not doing it for reasons that are authentically yours, if you've lost sight of what inspired you from those very first days, then the long, arduous entrepreneurial journey you just endured might very well fill you with regret. Like promise unfulfilled.

Forget feeling successful. You can feel like a downright failure when you get to the right place for the wrong reasons, no matter how much money you have. That's because the path to true entrepreneurial success is not strictly about profit, it's also about finding and fulfilling a deeper purpose. That has been the destination all along. Knowing that, and recognizing when you've reached it, is when the rewards truly begin to accrue.

19) IT CAN'T BE ALL ABOUT THE MONEY

The Beatles told us that money can't buy you love. Rousseau taught us that money doesn't buy you happiness. The Bible warns us that the love of money is the root of all evil. And these casualities of the subprime mortgage crisis showed us that money can't be the primary motivating force behind our businesses. A company that is successful and resilient and that acts as a force for good in the world long after you're gone has a larger purpose, a mission at it's center. One that you as founder are responsible for indentifying and articulating from the very beginning, then guarding during times of plenty and leaning on during times of difficulty.

Founders who approach their business with a “mission first” focus tend to be better equipped to handle the lure of unrestrained and manic growth that has damaged or even sunk so many companies with early potential. But having a defined mission is even more valubale when money is scarce or growh is anemic, especially for younger companies, because it gives them a reason to keep on fighting. In contrast, if they are operating with a “money first” mind-set, money's absence makes it so much easier to abandon what they're doing and to pivot before they should, to give up on their original idea at the first sign of trouble, or just plain old quit.

More than just stoking the flames of a fighting spirit when things aren't going your way, the mission is what gives your business, and you, direction. It helps you identify opportunities. It helps you categorize and prioritize the field of choices in any situation, from those that advance the intersts of the business to those that subvert it or hold it back. This is perhaps the most important thing that a mission does for a young company, because with everything swirling around you, whether it's product development, funding, hiring, or marketing, it's very easy to lose your sense of direction both individually as a founder and collectively as the business. Once you lose your sense of direction, the chances of keeping hold of any sense of mission become slim. After all, if you don't know where you're going, it's hard to know why you're going there.

Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk from the southwest of England, had a mission to demystify meditation and make it accessible to as many people as possible.  The first step on the journey once he was back in the United Kingdom was to figure out the how and the why of this whole experience and then to find a plae where he could teach clients one on one. The goal he said was to give people just enough to be inspired or to get excited to try mediation, because a lot of people had heard and read about it, but it's only really in the experience of it that you can get them to make that leap in terms of actually getting the benefit. So he started to use a lot more storytelling in his practice. He took a lot of metaphors and analogies from the Tibetan tradition, but he changed them just enough to make them “more approachable and accessible.”

At his first teaching space, a clinic room in a London integrative health center fun by a doctor who had heard a lot of good things about “mindfulness”. Before too long, Andy was seeing six to ten people every day, all with very mainstream problems. They were struggling with depression, anxiety, insomnia, stress, mirgraines, many of the things that we all suffer with now in a life of just sheer overload. He'd see each person for an hour a week for ten weeks, gradually developing in the process a ten week long modular course from which everyone can benefit. Any by everyone I mean everyone, because everything you hear in the Headspace app is now is build built on the content and the language that was developed during that time. It was a really important trainign ground in terms of understanding what worked and what didn', what language connected and what didn't.

Before he got to the Headspace app, which by mid 2018, had more thatn 30 million users and a million paying subscribers, Andy first had to figure out how to move beyond the one on one clinic experience. Not to make more money, though he certainly could have used it, but to reach more people more quickly. ”I wanted to get meditation out. I wanted to get more people meditating. I just didn't know how to do it outside of the clinic” he said.

20) BUILD A CULTURE, NOT A CULT

At Reed Hastings first company Pure Software, the "culture first" approach he used at Netflix didn't come naturally. He did things another way which was "me first". Not that he was selfish, just the opposite was true. He did everything or at least he tried to do everything, himself. "I thought if I could just do more sales calls, more travel, write more code, do more interviews, that somehow it would work out better," he said. In his mind, if there was a problem to be solved or a bug in the code to be fixed, as the founder and CEO of the company, which was his brainchild, he was the obvious and best choice for doing what needed to get done. Eventually, wearing all those hats got to be too much. "I was coding all night, trying to be CEO in the day, and once in a while, I'd squeeze in a shower" he said. It wasn't working Hastings had to figure out a better way. This is when he made the mistake from which the culture deck would eventually be born. Now whenever they had a problem at Pure Software, instead of tring to fix it himself, he tried to implement a process that would prevent the problem from ever happening again. The real problem was that he was trying to dummy-proof the system, and then eventually only dummies wanted to work there. Then, of course the market shifted and the company was unable to adapt.

Pure Software was eventually acquired by its largest competitor, and Reed Hastings used the financial windfall from that sale to co-founder Netflix, where he made sure not to repeat his process-obsessed, founder-centric mistakes. He was fortunate. Many founders have not been so lucky. Any successful founder will tell you that the impulse to do everything yourself, to believe that only you know best and then to build processes that reflect that belief, is endemic to entrepreneurship and has the potential to be incredibly destructive. When the processes don't work and your conclusions continually prove wrong, your assumption is that if you just take on a little more and work a little harder, everything will be fine. But that approach can wear you down physically and mentally. Plus, as Reid Hoffman put it in his episode with Hastings, "more work is never the real answer. To succeed as you scale, you have to leverage every person in the organization. And to do that, you have to be very intentional about how you craft the culture." This may sound like common sense, because it is! But I've been surprised at how often entrepreneurs I've encountered make the mistake of trying to do everything themselves as the company begins to grow. What happens in the end is that everything about the business starts to be about the founder rather than the business.

This is one of the hardest traps for even the most well-intentioned entrepreneur to avoid, let alone spot. For the longest time in the beginning, it can feel like it's just you and your idea. The seed gets planted in your mind, you water it with inspiration until it germinates into an idea, you feed it with research until it pokes up through the soil and sees the light of day as a product, which is when it first finds the warmth of attention from an audience, and then if you're lucky, it starts to blossom into a full fledged business.

Getting to that point is an all-consuming process. It takes all your time, energy and focus. It's all you think about, and after a while the line between you and your idea can start to blur. It becomes difficult to know where you end and the company begins. It becomes impossible, especially in the leaner, trying times, to fathom that anyone could understand the business or its problems in the way that you can. So when someone on your team levels the charge that you're making everything about yourself, it almost doesn't compute. Everything you do, you do for the business. You've given everything have to it. If you could give more, you would. But when you and the business are indistinguishable, when you've allowed your identity to merge with the company's how does it not appear to be the case, from outside at least, that your singular focus on the business is also a singular focus on yourself?

It turns out there is a name for founders who fall into this trap. They're called "monarch CEO's" according to Professor Jeffery Sonnenfeld, who stuides CEOs at the Yale School of Management. "Their business is defined around them and their life is defined around the business", he told the Washington Post. The most notorious of these figures in recent years was Dov Charney, the controversial founder of the now-defunct clothing retailer American Apparel.

American Apparel was a juggernaut in the clothing business and in the culture during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Their advertisements were edgy and sexually provocative. Their retail stores were on the best streets in all the right cities. They manufactured their clothes out of a large, old factory building in downtown Los Angeles. Their clothes were everywhere and on everyone the entire decade. I still own a couple American Apparel T-shirts and hoodies that I wear in regular rotation.

American' Apparel's rise from a domestic clothing manufacturer and wholesaler into an international retail brand was as fast as its fall. They moved into their famous downtown LA factory in 2000. By 2005, they were one of the fastest growing companies in America. By 2011, the company had more than 250 stores with revenue well north of $500 million. And then, by 2014 amidst a tangle of sexual harassment lawsuits and bad financial deals, Dov was kicked off the board of the company he founded. By 2015, American Apparel was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By 2017, the company as Dov Charney knew it was gone, all ties to the founder severed, it's intellectual property sold at auction to a competitor, Gildan Activewear for less than $100 million, it's retail stores shuttered. It's a sad cautionary tale. Dov Charney was American Apparel. American Apparel was Dov Charney. And that was the whole problem. Everyone saw it. The New York Times said, "Charney himself had no other interests ouside his company. He viewed himself as indeispensable" The Financial Times said "It is almost as if Mr.Charney believes that the scandalous behaviour he has so often been accused if is inextricably tied up with the image of his often lauded but deeply unconventional fashion label" It's a sentiment Charney would not reject. He told the Financial Times reporter "I am a deep part of the brand".

The depth of their synchronicity is where the trouble for American Apparel started. At various points well into the history of the company. Charney was the CEO, the designer, the main photographer, the male fit model, a centerpiece of their advertising and their biggest liability. Not just legally either. As often happens when a founder loses themselves inside their business, he became a control freak. He had store managers calling him directly. He famously moved into a warehouse that was having some problems and had a shower installed so he could live there twenty four hours a day monitoring the work. Once when there was a traffic jam in the parking lot of American Apparel's LA headquarters, Charney went downstairs and personally directed traffic until it cleared.

These might be humble, romantic gestures of a leader willing to do whatever it takes if they weren't actually a reflection of a founder who had turned into a relentless micromanager as the company grew. "A lot of founders have difficulty making this transition" said Professor Sydney Finkelstein of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in the wake of Charney's ouster from the board. "When you're a smaller company, micromanagment is not necessarily a terrible thing. It's when you cross the line and have to grow, you've got to have management talent around you.

"If the cultural roots are strong, then new leadership is developed in that model, and will often continue the culture" - Reed Hastings If the roots are unstable however and the leadership is constantly changing, the culture will be, too. By consistently firing or driving away talented leaders, Charney managed to yank out by the roots whatever culture there was to speak of at American Apparell, and in filling the vacuum with himself, the culture of American Apparel became the Cult of Dov. As Dov imploded, so did American Apparell.

Tristan the owner of a skincare brand. If he hadn't been careful, Tristan could have very easily found himself on a self absorbed Dov Charney style trajectory. Instead, he found a problem to solve "for people who lookied like me", as he put it. He developed a set of solutions that could become a business that employed a lot of people, if he just cultivated the seed of the idea and tended to the soil with enough care to make sure the idea blossomed and flourished. Almost immediately, Tristan's goals changed. Instead of being singular and self-focuesed, they were multiple and communal. He recongnized that for a business to last 100 years, which was one of his new goals, it can't be about you, because "you don't scale". Only your idea, and your story, and your values do. As long as you know them and share them.

"Knowing your values gets you on the same page with your employees. They get you on the same page in this noisy world with your consumers, but more importantly they give you your purpose," Tristan said "Without knowing your values, you're going to make decisions that are inconsistent and you have to have consistency to inspire your sanity."

I would argue that you also need consistency to inspire your people. And there is nothing more consistent than a set of clear values written down on the page for everyone to see. Just ask Reed Hastings or better yet, ask his 7000 employees.

21) THINK SMALL TO GET BIG

22) MANAGE PARTNERSHIP TENSIONS

23) KNOW THYSELF

When I started podcasts my friends thought I'd lost my mind. they were right to be skeptical. We were still a few years away from the podcast boom that began to swallow traditional radio.

Podcasting let me be the most genuine version of my personal and professional self, and it unexpectedly put my career into ascendancy as a result. Embracing my storytelling sensibilities helped put my production ecompany on the same track. It guided me to, and through, every decision in every phase of our growth, whom to hire, who to profile on the show, what to say no to, and it also kep us from falling off the righ track.

When growth begins to accelerate, it's even more critical to know who you are as a founder and who you are as a company. That understanding helps point you in the right direction when you have opportunities to pursure lots of different things. It's a constant reminder of what business you're actually in, which is something that is surprisingly easy to forget or lose sight of once your business starts to expand, evolve, and change shape. Believe me, I've been there, and so have most of the founder I've interviewed.

Andy, one of the co-founders of Bonobos was dealing with problems in the workplace. "I was a confused person, I got depressed, and I kind of had to fake it at work that I was doing okay. It was super tough to navigate." He also struggled with direct conflict and confrontation. "I valued harmoney over the difficult conversations until the situation became really difficult", he said, "and then I'd take it on" Compbined with the normal stress and insecurity that come with running a succesful startup, one that wasn't even his idea to begin with, these personal issues started to steer Andy toward poor decisions, including fighting with his co-founder in front of the team, which exacerbated the company's identity crisis.

24) WHEN TO SELL AND WHEN TO STAY

Now entrepreneurs don't have to raise professional money if they don't want to. They don't have to accept it in the amounts or at the valuation that may be available to them. They don't have to realize the potential idling within their ideas as quickly as others may want either. They can take it slow. They can defer compensation. They can wait to make a lot of money and let the company grow at a more natural pace. It wouldn't be an unfamiliar place from which to operate for most entrepreneurs, since founders typically pay themselves about as much as they could make if they were employees, and much less on average than a CEO would make coming into the company. Fundamentally it comes down to what a founder thinks is best for the company and best for themselves. Neither choice is by definition better than the other. It all depends on what a founder's goals were when they started their company, and where theose goals have evolved in light of their success.

Except I don't think money and control are your only choices when you are wrangling with a growing and successful busines. I don't believe they are the only two major forces that motivate an entrepreneur's decision making either. I think there is a third. A consider that tends to play a lesser role during the fundraising part of growth, but is especially active once a founder has grown their business beyond what they ever imagined possible and the opportunity to sell presents itself. I'm talking about happiness. Contentment. Making a decision that feels right.

25) BE KIND

26) WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR LUCK

Every successful entrepreneur I've met has a story about working eighteen hour days for months on end or eating ramen and cereal and rice to get by, but none of them has ever worked harder in their capacity as a founder than a dishwasher or a gardener or a construction worker or a waitress works every single day. Every founders stories has a strong strain of luck running through it. But I'm not talking about luck in this context as any sort of admonition against these founders being proud of all the hard work they put in. I mention it in order to, I hope, help aspring entrepreneurs understadn that the luck these founders experienced was not some desembodied magical force. It didn't happen in a vacuum. It didn't happen to them. Luck when it comes right down to it, is really just an opportunity waiting to be taken advatage of, and they took advantage of it.

Maybe you were lucky enough to have a good network, or a stable home, or a good education, or maybe you were lucky enough to be born with the kind of personality that makes you more resilient, more willing to accept rejection, more willing to do whatever it takes, without the massive ego that prevents so many from sticking with it during hard times. A personality like Daymond John's with the drive to work hard and the resilience to push forward through all the nos until he got to a yes.

Whatever the case, the question you will need to answer for you self as an aspring entrepreneur isn't whether you will have any luck, you will, you probably already do. It's what you are going to do with the luck that you have. Are you doing to take advantage of it? Are you going to do the work? Are you going to take the leap? Are you going to write that twenty-fifth investor email? What about the twenty-sixth? Are you going to pay all the friends in your network to buy your product so the stores think its super popular right away, like Sara Blakely did with the first five stores she got Spanx into? Are you going to physically move your product in those stores to a more optimal location like she did, too? Those are choices you will have when you realize how lucky you are and you spot the opportunities that come with that luck.

You and I, we are both lucky. I had the opportunity to write this book, you had the money to buy it (or the patience to wait for it at the library) and the time and inclination to read it. I've had the privilege of meeting and interviewing some of the world's most succesful innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists in order to help them tell their stories, you somehow found you way here, where you can learn from the lessons their stories hold.

[accio-feels]

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Allow's say you have a budget of $1,400 for gaming laptop, so you can set the price variety for $650 - $1,400. 2. What games you wish to play with? It is a 2nd crucial problem for buying a gaming laptop. There are 2D and also 3D video games. 2D video games( like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) just needs a quick CPU as well as some memories to run smoothly and also most laptop today will get the job done. 3D video games( WOW, Crysis, COD ...) call for an effective visuals card (GPU) to take care of the difficult real-time estimations in the 3D video games. Different visuals cards have different efficiencies in playing various 3D video games. There are 2 significant GPU Giants there: Nvidia and ATI. Both of them have a serial designs of visuals cards for various gaming demands If you are mosting likely to maxout all details in the most recent FPS video games such as Crysis, you need to obtain a high-level visuals card. If you feel that playing basic video games smoothly, and playing the latest games in low-medium effects serve, there are additionally a lot of medium-level visuals cards available for you to choose. Generally, the extra powerful a GPU( visuals processing device) is, the more cash you will spend. By recognizing your demands you will certainly save cash. Not everybody require an incredibly gaming machine. Don't utilize projectiles if you simply wish to catch a bird. 3. Details demands. Every person has his/her favorite brand. Some people like Intel CPUs while others like AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like small screen size while others favor cinema. There are also other selections such as dimension of disk drive, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, sound card, shades and weight. Yet bear in mind that gaming ability is your very first top priority. Any of your selections will be fine as long as you comply with the step 1 as well as step 2. 4. when and also where to purchase Naturally you could get a laptop anytime you such as. Often you save cash if you prefer to get in a promotion duration with some great discount coupons. There are also some individuals there will say: "I wish to wait on the rate to fall ..." However, every cent you spend deserves for its worth. If you have a great spending plan and do not wish to wait too long, why not delighting in the innovative technologies in latest gaming while other individuals are still in waiting? There is no end answer for inquiry "which laptop computer is the best for gaming?" If it is good for you, then go all out. There are 2 kinds of laptop computer vendors: makers( Dell, HP ...) and resellers. ( Finest Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples ...). You could acquire laptops from them on the internet or in store. Generally manufacturers provide even more personalization selections and also resellers supply the products in 'what you see is what you obtain'. If you want to customize laptop with your selections, just buy it from makers directly. If you are not acquainted with laptop and also aren't sure just what laptop computer to select, simply inform agents from resellers what you intend to make with the laptop and also normally they will certainly provide some beneficial ideas for you. Before any kind of getting, you should have some keynotes of just what laptop you need. It will certainly be significantly practical if you do a little research on Net by seeing laptop computer testimonial websites. Really, finding a gaming laptop computer is a fascinating process instead of a laborious. It is not as difficult as we thought previously. Every gamer could get the very best gaming laptop computer for playing great games

[wazafam]

In the past few months, almost every newspaper, website, or magazine has published an article titled something like this: "WTF is an NFT?" Short for Non-Fungible Tokens, NFTs have taken the art, music, and social media worlds by storm. NFTs represent unique digital items whose metadata is stored on a blockchain.

RELATED: Stablecoins Explained & How They Can Help Stabilize Cryptocurrencies

These NFTs are used to authenticate a range of digital files, including images, videos, songs, and even Tweets. Instead of physical art, more and more wealthy investors are transferring their funds into cryptocurrency and then putting down large sums of money on NFTs. This raises a vital question Redditors are trying to answer: what's so cool about NFTs?

10 Explaining NFTs To Outsiders Is An Impossible Task

Is it art? Is it data? Is it both? Why would anyone want to spend money on an NFT? These are the kinds of questions cryptocurrency experts field from outsiders, who find it very difficult to explain the ins and outs of making, authenticating, purchasing, and then storing NFTs.

This is made worse by the fact that blockchains, which store cryptocurrency transactions and NFT metadata, are also mindboggling for novice users. One Ethereum blockchain proponent went as far as developing a more user-friendly app that allows people to collect NFT art and zoom in on the details present in each piece.

9 Whether Or Not Copycats Go After NFT Assets Is Beside The Point

Another question posed regularly by outsiders about NFTs is, "Why can't people just duplicate someone's digital asset, claim it's their original work, and then resell it?" According to some well-versed NFT Redditors, this kind of question is beside the point.

People can steal or copy a digital file into infinity, but NFTs -- as their name suggests -- are not replaceable or exchangeable. The only copy of an NFT that matters is the one with its own unique hash, or metadata, stored in the blockchain and this one-of-a-kind marker guarantees the original file's authenticity.

8 Artists Have To Promote Their NFTs

Content creators can't expect to upload a few digital files to an online gallery and get rich quickly. In order for someone's NFTs to become a valuable cryptocurrency asset, they need to properly market themselves.

RELATED: How Apple Pay & Google Pay Users Can Pay In Crypto Using BitPay

There are some fantastic crowdsourcing efforts in place to make sure forgeries are weeded out, such as reverse image searches. Legitimate artists trying to get established should focus on the validity of their NFTs, as investors will be more likely to purchase verified files.

7 This Is Because It All Boils Down To A Name Game

Unfortunately, just like it goes with other investment communities, famous people are much more likely to sell NFTs than non-famous people. Case in point: Grimes, the performer who just so happens to be Elon Musk's partner, made millions in just a few minutes selling crypto-punk NFTs.

A video of Lebron James making a slam dunk sold for $208,000. This proves that investors are after recognizable pieces from recognizable names that will, in theory, accrue value over time.

6 Which NFTs Are Collected By High Bidders Is Less About Aesthetics And More About Numbers

That Christie's auction house recently sold an NFT collage made by a digital artist named Beeple for $70 million indicates big spenders are willing to put their wealth toward these speculative ventures. Some Redditors hypothesize these initial investors are far less interested in how a piece looks and much more interested in its monetary worth.

RELATED: PayPal Users In The U.S. Can Now Buy Cryptocurrency: How To Get Started

Since the future of NFTs is to be determined, these investors are picking NFTs they believe will the most financially beneficial over time. Part of that value, they hope, comes with the fact they are purchasing one of the earliest examples of an NFT.

5 NFTs Are Smart Investments

Whether you're a maker, buyer, or both, some proponents of NFTs think their future is a hopeful one. Since it's such a new concept, and since cryptocurrency isn't widely used yet, NFTs are getting a bad reputation way too early in their development.

One Redditor details why it's important for NFT artists to spend the money authenticating their digital files properly -- a process called minting. If more and more burgeoning creatives utilize these online NFT markets to revolutionize how art is shared and experienced, NFTs will become an even hotter market for investors.

4 Conversely, Maybe They're Just A Fad That Will Die Out Like Cryptokitties

On the flip side, not everyone on Reddit is convinced NFTs have lasting power. One user even compares them to the Ethereum blockchain game CryptoKitties, which took off rapidly and then fell into obscurity just as quickly a few years ago.

RELATED: Amazon Digital Currency: The Potential Benefits & How It Might Work

Why the dim outlook for NFTs? Apparently, this form of digital art "ownership" is far too convoluted and unsustainable.

3 Most People Won't Get Any Value Out Of NFTs

Continuing this train of thought, the average internet user, even someone who may dabble a bit in cryptocurrency, has nothing to gain from NFTs. Those who expect to quickly upload a file to digital marketplaces like OpenSea and then become millionaires will be very, very disappointed.

Creating and making NFTs requires attention to detail, time, and knowledge of how crypto communities function. Normal people will likely feel overwhelmed, scared, or downright confused by the prospect of getting started.

2 The Inherent Value Of Digital Art Is Very Different From Physical Art

Another ongoing debate among Redditers looks at the differences between physical art and digital art. Many collectors and investors gain pleasure not just from acquiring expensive pieces, but from being able to physically interact with them by hanging them up or putting them on display.

NFT investors don't interact with the digital files they procure in the same ways. This may prove to be a major deterrent for the NFT community, one that will require a lot of creative app engineering.

1 The Implications For The Gaming World Could Be Massive

If NFTs do take off, gamers could see how they play, purchase, and create worlds altered irrevocably. Game developers and players alike could one day use NFT marketplaces to exchange game-ready digital assets like weapons.

Not only will these assets add new creative possibilities to gameplay; their status as NFTs will put them on investors' radars. Regardless of what happens, a lot of people are currently thinking big about NFTs.

NEXT: BlockFi Visa Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card: What Is It & Is It Worth It?

10 Best Reddit Theories About NFTs, The Cryptocurrency Digital Asset Craze from https://ift.tt/39ztwaC

[ryliweb]

PlayStation 5 Scalpers Aren’t Happy With Their Public Image

The simple, joyful, act of buying the latest console – a twice-decade dopamine hit like no other – has become a rage-inducing misery in 2020 and 2021.

Why? Because of scalpers who employ fast-buying bots to scoop up hundreds of consoles in the time it takes for your finger to press “order”.

They are using increasingly sophisticated bots to do this and becoming more organised to spot opportunities, often working in large groups. For regular gamers who want to buy a console, this has caused huge frustration and anger towards scalpers who are profiting from reselling consoles at huge markups.

But scalpers I’ve spoken with say their intentions are misunderstood and their negative public image isn’t justified.

“There seems to be A LOT of bad press on this incredibly valuable industry and I do not feel that it is justified, all we are acting as is a middleman for limited quantity items.” said Jordan, who co-founded The Lab, a private group that advises paying users on how to scalp (known as a “cook group”).

Jordan claims to have secured 25 PlayStation 5 units in January and resold them for £700. The most expensive recommended retail price for the PS5 is £450. This, he feels, is no different to how any other business operates.

“Essentially every business resells their products. Tesco, for example, buys milk from farmers for 26p or so per litre and sells it on for upwards of 70p per litre. No one ever seems to complain to the extent as they are currently doing towards ourselves.” The backlash from angry gamers has led to death threats, Jordan claims, which have been reported to police.

I put Jordan’s analogy to some frustrated gamers who have been trying to buy the Sony console for weeks. One, who didn’t want to be named, said “he is deluded. He doesn’t get he’s another layer of profiteering in his own Tesco analogy. He’s not Robin Hood.”

Bypassing security checks

Jordan’s success has been replicated by other users in The Lab. Jordan’s business partner, Regan, shared images of mass purchases of in-demand Supreme gear using a bot called Velox.

The screenshots show that not only is the bot fast at checking out (the fastest is 2.3 seconds for a Supreme x Smurfs Skateboard), but it also manages to bypass 3D Secure to make the transaction happen.

3D Secure is an additional layer of security which verifies that the buyer is the legitimate card owner. It is a requirement in the UK for all websites processing card payments (if the payment card supports it). This usually redirects buyers to another site, which is owned by the bank, for authentication. But the Velox bot used for these supreme purchases bypasses the protocol for a faster checkout.

I asked web security and performance consultant, Edward Spencer, how this bypass this works.

“I suspect the 3D Secure payments page is being by passed by using a card that has not had 3D Secure enabled. Generally, all cards provided by EU banks must have 3D Secure enabled. If you called your bank and requested that 3D Secure was disabled for your card, they’d refuse. So I would guess that they are using cards associated with banks that are from outside of the EU, and are probably pre-paid. The shops could probably thwart these guys by banning all non-3d Secure transactions”.

But there’s more to scalper success then bypassing 3D Secure. Another person I spoke with, who only wanted to be quoted as “Alex”, attempted to build his own bot to buy a PS5. But his was a website scraper that automated purchases, which, as Alex explains, isn’t quick enough.

“There are bots that interact with servers, and there are bots that interact with the web browser – mine interacted with a web browser. So it can only go as fast as a website will let you go. It works faster than a normal human, but there are other bots that, you know, people would be selling for thousands of dollars that will beat my bot every time.”

He continued: “so I know, for Walmart, there was an open API for their stock. Some of these bots could add a PS5 to their shopping cart, and then they could purchase it from there.”

Alex is right that scalpers and cook groups are finding innovative ways to get stock before anyone else. On January 25th cook group Express Notify found a way to buy PlayStation 5 units from UK retailer Argos a full day before the official stock drop, ordering several consoles. Argos eventually shut down the loophole.

Exactly how these bots bypass safeguards, or “interact with servers”, as Alex put it is a bit of a mystery. Spencer speculates that the creators of these bots have “sniffed” the web traffic between the web browser or mobile app of an online store, and the servers.

“Right now I can open Google Chrome and go to any online store, press F12 and I’ll get the developer tools up. All I’ve got to do is go to the network tab, and then maybe add a product into my cart , and observe how my browser is talking to the server that hosts the website. There will typically be network calls to an API running on the server that reveals information – in a computer and human readable way – about products and stock levels.

“So this API isn’t intended to be used by 3rd party developers, but a 3rd party developer could use it if they worked out how. It’s reverse engineering the online store’s API. This isn’t exactly sophisticated. Sites can mitigate this with tried and tested anti-request forgery techniques but unfortunately many sites just don’t bother.”

I contacted several bot makers and cook groups to ask how their tech works, but none were forthcoming apart from those quoted in this story. If you have any information you’re willing to share, then get in contact.

Impossible competition

The scalpers I did speak with operate as a business, in some cases with full time staff. Because of the potential money on the table, the scalpers employ a lot of techniques to gain an advantage over regular buyers and other bot users. Jordan explained that because of bot competition, he has to be vigilant of opportunities.

“Our group monitors hundreds of websites waiting to notify members of restocks. The website I was able to get checkouts from was GAME, which the monitors notified us at around 10am GMT that PS5 stock had been loaded onto the backend of the website.

“It is pretty simple to set up as all the top tier bots have in-depth guides or really simple interfaces. All I needed was the product ID, a few unique billing profiles and proxies (proxies allow us access websites from different locations whether it be country or city specific). We have this all in place ready before any restocks happen to give us the best chances of purchasing. If you are slow, even with a bot, you will miss out on the product.”

GAME issued the following statement in reply to Jordan’s claim.

“PlayStation 5s continue to be in very high demand and that demand far outweighs current supply. We have strong measures in place to help ensure that our “1 per customer” statement is maintained to allow for as many individual customers to successfully purchase as possible.

“All pre-orders are subject to automatic checks and order updates such as cancellations following these checks take place after a customer will have received a valid order confirmation email.”

Jordan didn’t want to name the bot they used to complete the purchases, but they did say that “ you will have seen it plastered amongst the media recently due to the PS5 shortage.” In late January, the team behind a bot called Carnage boasted about helping users secure 2000 PS5s. The Carnage bot team could not be reached for comment.

Both Regan and Jordan say that they are, ultimately, helping people by giving them financial opportunities to resell consoles at an inflated price. “I mainly just try and help others now, that’s all that really matters to me. The whole group came about near the start of the first UK lockdown and it makes me so happy that I can help people make some extra money for themselves.

“We do a lot for charity as well. I myself or collectively as a group donate to charity almost monthly at this point. Most notably over the past month we donated a large portion of our membership fees to a foodbank local to me.” I asked for details of the food bank to confirm Regan’s donation but he didn’t provide their information.

Employing the use of bots doesn’t guarantee a purchase of any hot ticket item, but it can massively improve your chances. What this means for the consumer is that the already limited pool of available product – which has been exacerbated by supply chain issues related to Covid – shrinks even further. Regan says this means average buyers will always struggle.

“Your average person who just wants one of the consoles to use struggles to get close. A lot of these sites have very minimal or easy to bypass bot protection. They often release stocks at stupid times or without any form of schedule. A retailer I won’t name released stock of the PlayStation 5s in the extremely early hours of the morning. Which shows the lack of care on their part. The only people who will have known about those restocks will have been people with monitors inside of cook groups.”

The post PlayStation 5 Scalpers Aren’t Happy With Their Public Image appeared first on RyLi Gaming Solutions.

[payment-providers]

New Post has been published on Payment-Providers.com

New Post has been published on https://payment-providers.com/the-rise-of-organized-crime-in-physical-retail/

The Rise Of Organized Crime In Physical Retail

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They say the perfect crime is hard to commit, but last week in Spokane, Washington an intrepid burglar managed to pull it off at the Yuppy Puppy pet store, according to local law enforcement officials. The burglar, according to surveillance video, managed to break into the shop, scoop the cash out of the register and flee the scene, all in under 35 seconds.

More impressive, according to shop owner Aquila Brown, the burglar managed to avoid ever directly looking at the security cameras, and managed to locate the cash register instantly, despite the fact that it had been recently relocated in the shop. Brown rejected suggestions that it could be a current or past employee, telling local news affiliates, “It was a pro.”

What makes the story stand out among the reams of local retail crime reporting is that the crime was actually committed. Botched crimes in local retail are common. In Colorado last week, police managed to arrest the same man for three attempted car thefts — two of which happened on the same night on the same block. He was arrested when police came upon him attempting to break into a truck and he verbally confirmed he was in the middle of trying to steal it. Upon being arrested for his third failed try, the alleged would-be car thief, Todd Sheldon, was forced to concede this may not be his calling.

“I really suck at this,” he told a deputy, the sheriff’s office said, according to Newsweek reports.

And he wasn’t the only thief with a talent issue. In California, a local caricature artist had a client sit down, commission a caricature, rob him of $500 and then run off. He left the caricature behind, because if one is going to rob someone, best to sit for a portrait first.

But the Yuppy Puppy thief, unlike his fellows in the world of brick-and-mortar retail crime that made local news this week, apparently thought the crime through, made a plan and executed it well. But considering they only made off with the $200 that was in the register, as the pet store is small, it does beg a different question entirely.

Why? It would be easier, more lucrative and carry no risk of jail time to download the Uber app and drive for a weekend. Even the Yuppy Puppy’s owner couldn’t make sense of it.

“He had clearly staked the place out. That’s crazy. We’re just a little pet store. Why would you waste your time?” Brown wondered, noting this is why she is fairly certain an employee isn’t to blame — as they would know there isn’t enough cash in the register to justify the effort.

As it turns out, not every criminal is a mastermind, and even those with a talent for crimes like burglary may lack the kind of long-term planning skills necessary to really make a successful go of it. The Spokane pet store robber is still at large, incidentally, and given that crime was about a week ago, the burglar may well be casing another micro-business for their next big three-digit score.

But while it is easy to mock small-time criminals pulling off inexplicably well-executed small-time burglaries, the rise of theft in the world of physical retail is no laughing matter. Cybercriminals and their consistently advancing efforts to make off with and illegally profit from pilfered consumer data get all kinds of press — but not every criminal organization targeting retailers is doing it from behind a computer screen and trolling for ill-gotten data.  An increasing number over the last few years have boots on the ground, so to speak, and are targeting physical goods — in stores, at delivery centers and en route between the two locations.

Organized Crime’s Physical Retail Expansion 

And we do mean criminal organizations — according to a late 2019 NRF report almost two-thirds of brick-and-mortar retailers have seen an increase in organized crime activity in their locations in the form of shoplifting gangs that work in tandem to pick the shelves of inventory. That figure comes on top of a finding that 97 percent of retailers had been victimized by ORC (organized retail crime) in the past year with losses averaging $703,320 per $1 billion in sales.

“Organized retail crime continues to present a serious challenge to the retail industry,” NRF Vice President of Loss Prevention Bob Moraca said. “These criminal gangs are sophisticated.”

And wide-ranging in the items they target — though the goods tend to gravitate toward one of two areas. The first is high-priced luxury consumer goods, particularly designer clothing and accessories, fine jewelry and high-end liquor products. The other is everyday consumer goods — baby formula, razors, energy drinks, laundry detergent and allergy medicine are all especially favored by ORC gangs, according to the report.

So when you are out on your weekly grocery run, bear in mind that you may in fact be surrounded by agents of organized crime on a mission to steal all the Tide Pods, Enfamil and Monster Energy drinks they can.

We’re just saying, watch who you accidentally bump into with your cart.

And while that is mostly a joke, retailers say their concern about the increased organized criminal presence in their stores over the last few years is the safety of their customers and employees, as some 68 percent of retailers reported that ORC gangs have shown a slightly greater tendency toward aggression, according to the NRF.

Solving the Problem 

Obviously organized crime showing up in a store with a mass of operatives to pick over the shelves is something no retailer wants — and according to the NRF’s Moraca, it is something retailers have been increasingly leveling up their game to rout out.

The gangs are more sophisticated, he noted, “but so are retail loss prevention teams. Retailers are committing more resources and constantly evolving their tactics to fight this ongoing challenge.”

But the era of eCommerce has made fighting these crimes more difficult, as it has made it easier to monetize ill-gotten gains. Resale at a deep discount, particularly for those necessity items, is markedly more easy by access to online marketplaces, especially those with lax vetting process for merchants. Retailers, according to the NRF, have also seen an uptick in a variation on that tactic, where ORC gangs will first steal merchandise from stores, return it to the store for a gift card and then resell the gift card via an online gift card marketplace. Among retailers surveyed, 51 percent said they had found their card on online gift card marketplaces, while 17 percent reported finding them in pawn shops.

The good news is that retailers are more keyed in to the concern than they’ve been of late — two-thirds report that battling back organized crime in their retail locations is a greater priority than it was five years ago, 55 percent reported plans to allocate additional technology resources to the issue and  38 percent reported plans to change policies around returns. Additionally, 37 plan to change point-of-sale policies.

Will it be enough to repel the organized crime gangs that have been targeting retailers as an excellent supply of easily monetizable free inventory for the last half decade? Well, if the world of cybercrime offers any parallel, probably not. The thing about organized criminal gangs is that they are persistent and almost impossible to be entirely rid of — since they tend to escalate in tandem with efforts to prevent them.

But then again, as Todd Sheldon’s failed attempt at a crime spree in Colorado demonstrated this week, persistence and talent are not necessarily the same thing. And for every clever thief out there who successfully skirts the system, there are quite a few less clever ones willing to greatly overthink a $200 robbery or leave a sketch of themselves behind after robbing the artist.

——————————–

Featured PYMNTS Study:

More than 63 percent of merchant service providers (MSPs) want to overhaul their core payment processing systems so they can up their value-added services (VAS) game. It’s tough, though, since many of these systems date back to the pre-digital era. In the January 2020 Optimizing Merchant Services Playbook, PYMNTS unpacks what 200 MSPs say is key to delivering the VAS agenda that is critical to their success.

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[blogger-samsmith]

Laptop For Games - How to Find Best Cheap Gaming Laptop Singapore

Who are gamers ? There are many pc gamers looking for gaming laptops. College students use it to enjoy favorite pc games. Super gamers try to find extremely powerful gaming machines to maxout high details in the latest games. Some other people just want to find a gaming laptop to handle some specific games under their budgets. Different people have the different budgets and requirements for a gaming laptop.

What are gaming laptops ? A gaming laptop's performance is better than other laptops in playing pc games. Gaming laptops have better CPU, memory, GPU combination so usually costs more money.

How to find the best gaming laptops ? Hardware technologies grow rapidly, it's impossible to follow all the latest updates in technologies, even for a IT guru. Some people can get references from friends who know laptops well, but most people have to figure out all by themselves. Forum post, Google and review articles are great sources to find out what laptops are good for gaming.

In fact, finding a gaming laptop is very easy. If you follow the steps I'm sure you can find a good gaming laptop to fit your need, no matter you have the any knowledge about laptop before or not.

1. Budget for the gaming laptop The price for gaming laptops varies from less than $1,000 to $4,000 or even more in different brands. So the first thing is to find out what is the affordable price for a gaming laptop. Now the minimum price for a gaming laptop is around $650. Some laptops are more expensive than others such as MAC. Generally, the more money you spend, the better performance(or service provided) a gaming laptop will have. Let's say you have a budget of $1,400 for gaming laptop, so you can set the price range for $650 - $1,400.

2. What games you want to play with ? It is a second important issue for buying a gaming laptop. There are 2D and 3D games. 2D games(like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) just needs a fast CPU and some memories to run smoothly and most laptop today will do the job. 3D games(WOW,Crysis,COD ...) require a powerful graphic card (GPU) to handle the complicated real-time calculations in the 3D games. Different graphic cards have different performances in playing different 3D games. There are two major GPU Giants there: Nvidia and ATI. Both of them have a serial models of graphic cards for different gaming requirements. If you are going to maxout all details in the latest FPS games such as Crysis, you have to get a top-level graphic card. If you feel that playing general games smoothly, and playing the latest games in low-medium effects are acceptable, there are also a bunch of medium-level graphic cards available for you to choose. Basically, the more powerful a GPU(graphic processing unit)is, the more money you will spend. By identifying your requirements you will save money. Not everyone need a super gaming machine. Don't use missiles if you just want to catch a bird.

3. Specific requirements Everyone has his/her favorite brand. Some people like Intel CPUs while others prefer AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like small screen size while others prefer big screen. There are also some other choices such as size of hard drive, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, sound card, colors and weight. But remember that gaming capacity is your first priority. Any of your choices will be fine as long as you follow the step 1 and step 2.

4. when and where to buy Of course you can buy a laptop anytime you like. Sometimes you save money if you choose to buy in a promotion period with some good coupons. There are also some people there will say: "I would like to wait for the price to drop down..."  However, every penny you spend is worth for its value. If you have a good budget and don't want to wait too long, why not enjoying the cutting-edge technologies in latest gaming while other people are still in waiting ? There is no end answer for question "which laptop is the best for gaming?" If it is good for you, then go for it.

There are two types of laptop sellers: manufacturers(Dell,HP...) and resellers.

(Best Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples...). You can buy laptops from them online or in store. Usually manufacturers provide more customization choices and resellers provide the products in 'what you see is what you get'. If you want to customize laptop with your choices, just buy it from manufacturers directly. If you are not familiar with laptop and don't know what laptop to choose, just tell agents from resellers what you want to do with the laptop and usually they will give some useful suggestions for you. Before any purchasing, you should have some basic ideas of what laptop you need. It will be greatly helpful if you do a little research on Internet by visiting laptop review sites.

Actually, finding a gaming laptop is a interesting process rather than a tough job. It is not as hard as we thought before. Every gamer can get the best cheap gaming laptop Singapore for playing great games

[johnmuffus]

eCommerce Paradise Academy Review

eCommerce Paradise Academy Review (Trevor Fenner Course)

eCommerce Paradise is a course by Trevor Fenner, and it’s available for $997. Today, we’ll take a look at the content it offers and whether or not it’s the course that will take you to eCom success. I’ll provide a detailed overview of the content provided in all modules, and I’ll give you my final verdict at the end of the article. The idea is to give you an outline of what you should do if you’re thinking about to buy this course.

This is a high ticket course, and it aims to give you the knowledge necessary to build and launch an online dropshipping store you can then scale after seeing success. As you read, the course focuses around high ticket items, so there are a few considerations.

Let me list them below before you dive in.

Course overview

eCommerce Paradise is a program aiming to teach you the in’s and out’s of high ticket dropshipping. You’ll learn how you can build and scale a successful store, selling high-price items with larger profit margins. The chosen platform here is Shopify.

It focuses on USA dropshipping with local suppliers, which is a disadvantage for students outside the US. The majority of suppliers will require a reselling ID, and you need a US-based venture to get one.

The course also recommends using credit cards, which some people outside the US or Canada might have trouble with. Entrepreneurship for US individuals tends to employ approach that don’t work for foreigners.

Outside of that, the actual content inside the course is impressive; there’s access to many modules and a remarkable amount of videos. People with a substantial budget can also opt to have the course team set up their store and team for them. There are other services like conversion optimization and Google and email marketing.

Who’s the author?

Trevor Fenner is what’s known as a digital nomad, and he’s currently living in SE Asia, after moving to establish himself as an eCommerce owner. Besides his ventures, he also has a blog under the same name as the course. He uses it for documenting his experiences in life and business.

I’ve been hearing about this blog from acquaintances for a while now, so he’s definitely not a newcomer. He claims his experience spans 10 years in eCommerce.

He started out with regular low priced items, but he then scaled to high ticket after finding the larger profit margins offered. He has a bit of a motto on this: find an expensive product that people want to buy and sell it for a lot more, and that’s his approach to high ticket dropshipping.

Trevor has both bought and sold several stores, claiming to have cultivated several stores into 6 and 7 figures as he did so. He also spends time on YouTube when he’s not working on his course, blogging, or working on his ventures. He has a fairly small number of subscribers, but he still delivers interesting content.

He has a personal blog as well, and it’s more varied in terms of content. There’s your usual entrepreneurship advice, but he also shares his traveling experience as a digital nomad, and there’s even skateboarding stuff here.

As for his main income stream, right now seems to be consulting and instruction for people looking to start a course. At least that’s what his Instagram shows.

About eCommerce Paradise

eCommerce Paradise is hosted on Teachables, and it’s available for purchase for $997. Besides the course itself, there are several upsells with it, including additional coaching and done-for-you stores and strategies.

For Europe or Australia based students, there’s a possible VAT on that price around 10% or 25%, which means at least nearly $100 extra for the course. If you haven’t registered for VAT or GST where you live, it can be an even more expensive course.

Right now, the course spans 220 different videos spread on 27 modules. While 3 of those modules are introductory content, it’s still an immense course, and it’s among the largest we’ve reviewed here.

The modules themselves are varied length-wise. Some have a few videos and are fairly short, but others can last for over an hour. Still, you won’t escape your mindset videos in this course.

Important considerations

The course has a money back guarantee for 30 days, but you have to show you actually applied the concepts taught and tried to start a business. This is a course for people striving to take action, so don’t expect to go through it and expect your money back if you decided it’s not what you wanted.

However, you can still get a full refund. Just note that accessing the bonuses will forbid you from getting one, so think twice before taking a look at the reports and templates if you aren’t finding success with it.

You also need a startup capital between $500 and $1,000 to apply the lessons, so remember to add that to the course’s starting price. Conveniently, Trevor does recommend you to have a stable income to pay for any costs that might arise unexpectedly and have a safety net.

International students and eCommerce Paradise

As already stated, this course has a significant handicap for international members since the local suppliers advised here won’t work with people overseas without the proper ID’s. They need some form of proof that the dropshipper is a legitimate individual.

If you need local suppliers, and you’re based in the US; Canada, UK, Ireland, or Australia, then you can research local suppliers in your area.

If you’re an outsider, then you might run into the same difficulties other dropshippers (myself included) have met when trying to follow these types of approaches. One solution is to start an off-shore firm in Delaware, but that’s a bit out of reach for some people, to say the least; even if you can, you still have a lot to learn on the legal side of business.

Before you decide to go through with something like that, consider hiring advice from an expert on the subject, especially with tax law knowledge. If you have a local accountant, you can ask him, but he probably won’t have the necessary knowledge, so consider a professional. Understanding US taxation and how it impacts your home taxes is the main hurdle.

That’s why it’s recommended to start with low ticket dropshipping available with local suppliers in whichever country you live or with sources like AliExpress that are open to anyone.

Reviewing eCommerce Paradise Academy

Starting out

The first 3 modules are about starting out your business.

The first module goes into welcoming you to the course itself. You learn how you can access the private group, create a new email specifically for your business, and the necessary knowledge for venturing into the internet industry.

The second module is the mindset section. It offers 5 videos explaining you how to reach this mindset, and while some people don’t really like this type of content, you do learn how to set goals, plan your future, and ethics, which is entertaining at the very least.

Even if some people might find these topics boring, Trevor does show quite the interest on the topics themselves, and it’s a good sign of how genuine he is.

The 3rd and final starters module is an introduction and explanation of the dropshipping model and which products are best for you. You’ll also learn why Trevor uses Shopify, a few tools, and a bit about niche research before showing you some success stories.

Finding your niche

This is a nice module, especially because Trevor dedicates a lot of time explaining niche selection, and most dropshipping courses fall short in this section. There are 9 lessons totaling the module, and they cover the process the author uses.

It begins with a good video detailing how to research niches and categories. The next one is about how to price for a profit and finding your best target market. There’s a lesson on using generic and branded products.

You also learn about handling search volumes, finding the best trends, and understanding seasonality. He finally explains how to find suppliers who can agree to dropshipping and how you can come up with new approaches for working with your suppliers.

Market research

The 5th module is one of the most extensive modules both in the course and in general market research content. Trevor definitely intends to help you find amazing products and which niches you can target.

I can’t really cover everything here because it would be both spoiling the content and impossible to really explain everything that Trevor covers here.

You’ll learn how to research your niches, and it comes accompanied by a spreadsheet you can use for this task. There’s another video on how you can take advantage of your competitors to increase your market knowledge.

Some videos cover extracting categories, how to determine the average prices in the market, checking out which keywords are being searched the most in Google, and which categories you probably want to avoid depending on trends and seasons.

You also learn how you can revers engineer the competition to discover which suppliers they’re using for you to keep them for yourself. There’s also content on how to use MAP policies and customer reviews to filter your possible suppliers.

You’ll learn how you can use different tools for understanding your audience better and knowing the best markets you can target. After that, the module turns into more business-oriented content.

There’s content on how shipping works and some basic concepts like the different industries and competitiveness. There’s also an explanation on 2 approaches you can take to the market: business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C). Each approach has different targets and methods for you to tackle the market.

There’s a final video explaining how you can understand the difficulty of different products and which ones you should avoid. You can also access bonuses here already done for you, and they include a database with suppliers for you to start right away.

Niche research

The 6th module offers 4 niche reports about different products that have brought success to Trevor himself. You have pitching machines, bathroom stuff, wine coolers, and even electric fireplaces. The videos average between 15 and 30 minutes, and they offer a lot of detail about why these niches are good.

Just keep in mind that every student is accessing the same lessons, so make sure the markets aren’t already saturated before going for one. However, the training is actually very good, and it provides a good foundation for beginners to understand the following module’s training.

Said module goes into how to research niches with 6 lessons providing advanced strategies for those who understood the previous lessons on the same topic. The first ones talk about how to find best-sellers and which upsells and cross-sells you can add to them by looking at accessories or add-ons.

You’re taught how to spot offers from your competitors, the products, and how you can find the best keywords to run some content marketing. You also see how you can find influencers and other content sources that you can use for backlinking to your offers.

Forming your business

The 8th module goes into a US perspective, and it seems this course was aimed primarily at this student base, so international students taking this course will find irrelevant a lot of the things explained in this section.

The good thing is that most countries have similar business structures regarding independent traders and limited liability firms, so not everything is lost. You learn what are the best bank accounts for businesses and how to set them up as well as acquiring your credit card (if possible).

There’s also content on how to create a PayPal for businesses and hiring an accountant, which applies to any region, and the last videos explains how you can determine whether or not you need a virtual office, usually offering telephone contact.

Shopify setup

This topic occupies the 9th and 10th modules, and it’s a huge section with more than 40 videos detailing everything. Obviously, I can’t really go into every video, unless you want to read a 10,000-word review.

But let me give you an idea of what’s included here.

It starts off with 10 videos with your basic Shopify setup content: what is Shopify, which apps you should get, how to create your pages and blog posts, menus, and which themes are better for high ticket businesses. Trevor suggests Shoptimized.

After that, it goes into rarely visited territory. You learn how you edit the template’s code, how to install Google tracking codes, using Shopify analytics, adding discounts, masking domains, staff accounts, and URL redirections. Trevor explains it all with great detail, and you can add other pixels to the tracking codes (Google’s) like Facebook, and he does explain that later.

That’s it for module 9. Module 10 extends that knowledge by telling you how to find a suitable domain name and the links. You also create an email with GSuite, and you then add your logo and phone number (but this number is for US citizens, an 1800).

This module then goes into homepage banners, demo products, collections, and a refreshment on module 9 content with a bit more detail. Trevor also added a few templates you can use for your about pages and videos.

You’re recommended supporting a charitable course to help your sales, and he goes into creating a contact, satisfaction guarantee, shipping policy and warranties page. As with the previous ones, you have downloadable templates for all of these. Just make sure to not use them as is; edit them a bit before posting them as all students also have access to them.

The last lessons on creating pages close it by telling you how you can create pages for your terms and conditions, financing, privacy policies, and branding. They’re all critical to running a high ticket business.

You also get an affiliate link from Trevor for purchasing Shoptimized with a nice discount.

The module closes with some basic SEO like how to create meta descriptions and titles as well as integrating your Google webmaster tools.

Overall, the videos offer a lot of detail and insight. Beginners will leave this section with a great-looking Shopify store, and even more advanced users have something to learn.

Onboarding suppliers

Again a 2-module section, the first module tells you how you can find suppliers and the ones you should actually go with. You learn how to reach out to them either via phone or email.  Trevor adds a script here you can follow, but again, try to edit them and give a personal touch.

Then there’s how you fill out applications with these suppliers as well as what information you need from them and how to attain it. However, many international students will find issues in this module.

The 2nd module in this section talks about onboarding your suppliers and how you can list their products on your store. Think about using third-party integrations for your stock list to avoid overselling stuff that your supplier currently doesn’t have in stock or products with changed prices.

You also learn to add product tags that integrate with the premium theme you’re using and how to have all your image sizes equal so that your theme has no issues loading. On that topic, you then learn how you compress images to optimize your page loading times; this is also good for your SEO rankings.

You have videos about how to create branding collections and targeting long tailed keywords to match your products. That lets you add supplier products sales taxes to your sales taxes. If you don’t understand why you would want to do this, US dropshipping requires you to charge the sales tax on every order shipping within a state.

Let me explain that with an example: if someone in Texas purchase a product from you, and your supplier is also in Texas, they must pay the sales tax. If one of the two is in a different state, then it’s not required. Yes, that’s US-oriented content.

Optimizing conversions

The 13th module covers how to optimize your conversion rates, and you might be used to then little detail offered in other courses, but this is an actually solid section.

It starts off by taking a look at the apps you can integrate for encouraging client interaction by showcasing reviews. Trevor also tells you how you can create gift offers. Another app helps you to recover abandoned carts, and that’s before apps including Conversion plus and smart and instant searching integrations.

The last app recommended is Lucky Orange for tracking your visitors’ behavior live through heat maps.

The section closes with how you can optimize your checkout pages, which is a neat hack not many courses mention.

Social Media Marketing

This is one of the more basic modules in this course; luckily, most people already have experience at least using these platforms. The module opens up by creating your pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

You learn how you set up buffers to automate your posts on social media, which saves you both time and money. Another lesson is about setting up your IFTTT; it’s a syndication process used in social media to get backlinks for your website.

With another tip great for SEO, you’ll quickly notice how this is also one of the most extensive courses in terms of SEO as well. You receive an InstaZoo recommendation to automate your engagement on Instagram.

Email marketing

The email marketing module offers a video spanning 2 hours, and it explains how you can set up and start using Klaviyo. It’s an email marketing, eCommerce-focused platform you can use to automate your emails and provide your customers with promotions, abandoned cart recovery, and new products listing.

Trevor also included several email templates, so you don’t have to go ahead and trial-and-error your way to a successful email marketing approach. However, the same applies here as with all templates: edit them before you use them.

Paid ads

This is another 2-module section about, and it starts with a short lesson on the 16th module about an app you can use for dynamic retargeting. After that, Trevor hits you with 11 videos on how to set up your paid ads with Google and Bing.

It might be strange not to see a Facebook Ads lesson or similar platforms, but they’re not really effective for high ticket dropshipping. Most high ticket entrepreneurs with success will tell you that Google Ads and Shopping is the best channel to reach people actually looking to buy your products.

There’s a lesson about installing your Google Shopping feed for your venture and how to release your first advertisement for free. After that, you learn about adding different pixels for your store and how to optimize the ads.

After Google’s done, he applies the same approach to Bing. However, this is a fairly short lesson, which was fairly disappointing. It’s not bad content, but for almost $1,000, you’d expect stronger content.

Optimizing conversions (advanced)

The 18th module builds on the previous conversion optimization content, and it mostly adds to it with more apps you can integrate to your business. There are great recommendations here, and I’ll admit I didn’t even know a couple of these apps existed.

The module kicks off with an app for product reviews, and it then mentions Clearsale to help you spot frauds. The next recommendation is Klarna to help your financing (and if it’s available for your store) and Norton’s “Shopping Guarantee”, which you can integrate to aid your trust flow.

There are many other apps like Trust Guard and Clyde, for insurance and some warranty upsells. Verge’s JSON-LD and Shopper Reviews are mentioned as well, and Trevor even offers an app to protect your content so that thieves can’t steal it; this is followed by a watermark-adding app to protect your images as well.

The last videos are page optimization for your different sections, mainly your sales, collections, thank you’s and upsells.

YouTube

Luckily, Trevor isn’t like other eCommerce gurus on YouTube without a single video about the platform on their courses. While you only get 5 videos, it does provide you a good grasp on the basics like how to set up your channel and optimizing it, creating your intro, and sales videos.

As for optimizing the videos themselves, Trevor recommends TubeBuddy. The last video is how you can create unboxing and reviewing videos, but these may not work for the niche you’re using.

How would you unbox playgrounds or gym machines? Sure, the review side of the lesson would work, but perhaps a video on how to install would’ve been more appropriate since it applies to virtually all high-ticket products.

Store management

Store management takes 2 modules, 20 and 21. The first one tells you how you can create an eBay store and list your products there. However, that’s the only mention of eBay in the entire course, so this feels slightly out of place and awkward.

The 21st module is about general store management: including how to fulfill orders all the way to how to overcome frauds and debts.

There’s a nice app called Aftership he recommends, and you can integrate it with Klaviyo; it sends notifications to your customers about their shipment tracking, and it’s a great way to reduce disputes opened with the payment provider you chose.

You also learn how to create a blog on Shopify and processing your orders, including how to deal with your returns and refunds. That’s one of the main problems with high ticket dropshipping, but Trevor does provide good advice to survive these issues.

There are other videos about handling orders out of stock or customers receiving defective items in any way. The module closes with how to use follow-ups, payments stuck “on hold”, and coming up with professional quotes to offer business customers.

The module offers a lot of detail, and you’ll surely learn a lot.

Fulfilling orders

Module 22 offers just 3 videos on how to fulfill orders, but the previous module did cover a lot about this topic.

This module covers how to set up your account with a freight worker, which ensures great shipping costs. Sadly, this is US-only. Still, there are some cool lessons like how to guide your customers to the best shipping choice and how to create lading bills.

Outsource and scale

Modules 23 and 24 cover this topic. The first one goes into hiring a virtual assistant and the different platforms you can use for that. OnlineJobs.ph gets a mention, and since Filipinos are English speakers secondly, it’s among the best places to find affordable English-speaking VA’s.

On the process, you’re taught how to post your listing, interviewing your candidates, onboarding, paying, and general management.

Trevor mentions PatLive for setting up a receptionist and answering calls to offer better customer service. You then receive the details of whoever called for calling them back. You can even have the call be directed to you.

The 24th module is the overall process to scale to 7 figures.

Buying/selling stores

This section covers 2 more modules, and it explains how you can sell a store as well as preparing yourself for it, how to value your venture, and transferring the assets.

It also goes into buying a high ticket store, teaching you how to spot good and bad deals, paying deposits, what questions you should ask, and how to value others’ stores.

He recommends EmpireFlippers, a famous website marketplace, and you also have a case study of a site purchase for you to follow.

Bonuses

There are 3 bonuses in the extra module, and they encompass some coaching calls for your niche research, a session with the author to discuss advanced emailing strategies, and extra training on sales with a friend from Trevor, Ryan Garrido.

There’s a private Facebook group, and while it’s fairly small, with just 93 members, you can still find daily posts and discussions.

Is there a discount?

Yes, Trevor offers a mini course for free, and taking it gives you the best price offer for this course. There are no other offers or discount available, so don’t fall for people selling them.

Is it worth the money?

In short, yes, there’s a lot of content being offered for the price. You have dozens of courses selling for the same price and not even reaching the 50-video mark, but Trevor offers 4 times that content.

You even get plenty of bonuses, and while they’re not really worth the $15,000 claimed by the Author, they do add value.

The content inside the course is also better than other courses, besides the amount. Trevor is very knowledgeable and has a lot of experience, and that translates to most of the course.

Should you go with high ticket dropshipping?

If you’re in the US or other countries with willing suppliers, you’re on the right foot. Otherwise, you’ll have a hard time finding a supplier who will accept your offer.

Other than that, with higher profit margins comes higher risk. Imagine you sell something for $4,000 and the customer asks for a refund. That’s coming for your pocket.

If you’re starting out, it’s better to go with low ticket and look at high ticket as part of scaling your business.

Final Verdict

Is It Worth It? Final Verdict

It’s a great course, so if you have the leisure money, you can pay for a great package. It will give you the results you want if you try.

There are only 3 issues depending on the student:

Supplier-related content is mostly US-exclusive.

The price tag can be unreachable for some.

High ticket isn’t the best idea for beginners.

If you are in the US (or don’t mind researching a little on your own) and have enough leisure money, then go for it.

Also, high ticket dropshipping doesn’t have any specific processes, so a general dropshipping course does the trick. For $800 less, you can get eCom Elites, save $800 for a theme and ads, and still get enough knowledge to run any dropshipping store.

I’d recommend starting with low ticket and then using the same knowledge to scale to high ticket.

I hope you found this review useful and if you have any questions, please comment down below. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Once again, thanks for reading my eCommerce Paradise Academy Review and I wish you the best of luck.

The post eCommerce Paradise Academy Review appeared first on Only Genuine Reviews.

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[mariannewhughes]

Apple’s Daisy Robot Is Still a Stunt, But Their Other Recycling Ideas Are Good

Apple announced Thursday, four days short of Earth Day, that it is expanding its recycling programs by adding another phone-recycling robot, recovering more cobalt from phones, and building a research lab for electronics recycling. All of that is fine and good, but the robot is still a recycling PR move. Allowing the world to keep iPhones working, delaying recycling even further, would have a more meaningful impact.

Apple’s Recycling More Cobalt. That’s a Good Thing.

Let’s start with the broadly good news about cobalt reuse. Cobalt is a critical metal used in the electrodes of lithium-ion batteries. Demand for cobalt tripled between 2011 and 2016, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, and is projected to quadruple by 2029. The 6.6 grams of cobalt in an iPhone 6 is roughly 5 percent of the phone’s weight, according to The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant, and worth about 23 cents at the time of this writing. Combined with the other raw materials in the phone, that’s enough money to make it economically viable to attempt to recycle it.

60 percent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a lot of it—up to 40 percent—is mined by hand, sometimes by children, in cramped, dangerous holes. An investigation by the Washington Post found that such “artisanal” cobalt is often washed in the same water used for fishing and irrigation, leading to extremely unhealthy metal concentrations in residents. While Apple and other battery-buying companies have pledged to audit their supply chains for cobalt and other problematic metals, it’s extremely difficult to do so in environments with guarded depots, bribery, and byzantine international markets.

So any recycling of cobalt, instead of more mining, is worth some praise. And because it’s so valuable, recyclers go out of their way to recover it. What Apple announced today isn’t an innovative recycling process—it’s a method of tracking to make sure that cobalt from the batteries they recycle makes it back into their own products. It’s paperwork, but it’s important paperwork.

Apple’s press release states that the company has created “a true closed loop” for cobalt. As iFixit’s CEO Kyle Wiens told Reuters, “Cobalt is mined in horrific conditions … Reducing cobalt consumption is a good thing across the board.” For this closed loop to be credible, though, it should be backed up by a third party audit by a credible firm like UL Environment. It’s very possible they did that, and we encourage Apple to release the results of these audits.

Daisy the Recycling Robot Makes No Economic Sense

Now for the showiest portion of the announcement: Apple’s expansion of its press-friendly, proprietary recycling robot, Daisy. Given Apple’s own numbers, Daisy cannot possibly keep up with the scale of their manufacturing output, especially with newer Apple devices’ increasingly shortened lifespan and repair problems. Apple states that each Daisy machine (there are seemingly two of them) can disassemble 15 different iPhone models at a rate of 200 per hour, hypothetically 1.2 million a year. But theoretical throughput is a silly way to describe the process. In recycling, all that matters are real-world results. If you drive your car sixteen hours a day, you could hypothetically go 350,000 miles a year. That doesn’t mean you will—or that you have that many places to go.

How many phones has Daisy recycled? Apple hasn’t told us, only how many devices they have received: 1 million in the last year. Even if Daisy was bullet-proof enough to operate at that sustained rate of 200 phones per hour, though, supply is going to be a problem: Apple doesn’t get that many iPhones back.

Why? People aren’t giving Apple back their phones, because old iPhones are worth dramatically more on the used market than the material cost or Apple’s trade-in value. On Swappa, the 4-plus-year-old iPhone 6 still sells for $100, while Apple will give you a $90 gift card. Even the iPhone 4 nets $40, while Apple offers nothing. You’d be crazy to destroy a perfectly functional $100 product to recover $0.23 worth of cobalt. The recyclers we regularly speak with rarely see newer-model iPhones, and when they do, they repair and resell them. They certainly don’t grind them up for raw materials. Even non-functional phones are parted out and sold to people like us, who are in desperate need of original iPhone service parts.

Putting aside the supply logistics, the idea behind Daisy is compelling: with perfect knowledge of how a device is put together, you can build a machine that reverses the process and separates all the raw components. It’s easy to see why Apple, who excels at mass manufacturing, was drawn to a centralized approach. Just run the Foxconn assembly line in reverse, and use robots!

But, as with so many amazing ideas dreamed up in laboratories, the concept falls short in the real world. While manufacturing is centralized, recycling is not. At end of life, iPhones are more likely to end up at one of the many thousands of recycling facilities around the world than at one of Apple’s 500 stores. Recyclers handle a dizzying variety of products, from smartphones to CRT televisions to plastic Rock Band guitars. Without government or manufacturer subsidies, using a different specialized machine to recycle each model of product is economically impossible.

I asked Kelley Keogh, co-founder of Greeneye Partners, an electronics recycling auditing firm, what she thought of the project. “Without knowing/seeing their AI capabilities and robotics it’d be hard to judge.” But Koegh defended human disassembly: “I have seen very sophisticated facilities do this manually and quite well.”

Daisy’s fatal flaw is its model specificity. Recycling is a challenging business with slim margins. Recyclers need processes that can handle a broad array of tens of thousands of products. An expensive machine that can only disassemble 15 products just doesn’t make economic sense today.

Apple’s New Real-World Recycling Lab Has Promise

After the robot and cobalt news, Apple also announced that they launched a Material Recovery Lab. The 9,000-square-foot facility in Austin, Tex., “will look for innovative solutions involving robotics and machine learning to improve on traditional methods” of recycling. The lab, Apple says, will combine academics and Apple engineers to “propose solutions to today’s industry recycling challenges.”

Robots like Daisy are a radical approach to recycling that does not integrate well with traditional recycling systems. If Apple is going to provide their technical expertise to suggest incremental improvements existing recycling operations, that would be welcome news. Real-world recyclers need cost-effective technologies that they can integrate into their existing facilities.

It’s clear from the size and exceptionally clean sorting machinery Apple is showing off that their space is a lab, not an active sorting facility. If Apple shares their recycling finds with the wider industry, as the release claims they might, that’s a good thing. For this to be effective, this knowledge should be made publicly available for peer review by academics and adoption by recyclers around the world, in contrast with the secretive approach they have taken with Daisy so far.

But while improvements are welcome, the recycling industry has not been idly waiting for input. “I think often [manufacturing engineers] look at the materials recovery space and feel it has lacked effective R&D investment,” wrote Craig Boswell, president and co-founder of asset management firm HOBI International, in an email to iFixit. “This is far from the truth. There has been a tremendous amount of research on material shredding, separation, and cleaning techniques over the past 50 years. There have been a lot of advancements but some of the remaining issues represent tremendous technical challenges. I wish them the best.”

Envisioning a Greener Apple

Apple also touts refurbishing 7.8 million Apple devices in 2018, or about 3.6 percent of the 217.7 million iPhones sold that year. That’s great—reducing and reusing is better than recycling—but we think they could be doing a lot more to make their devices last longer outside their proprietary restoration system. They could allow the home buttons on phones to be replaced and reprogrammed without needing a secretive machine that locks out third-party or DIY repair. They could stop making MacBooks all but unrepairable, with keyboards that necessitate expensive replacements. And they could offer some kind of low-cost recycling approach for AirPods, Apple Pencils, Magic Keyboards, and the rest of their devices with built-in batteries sealed with impenetrable glue.

Hidden behind the chrome glamour of a recycling robot, Apple’s announcements have the glimmer of some positive changes. The recycling lab is a great idea—a little late, but seemingly a move in a good direction. But they are avoiding the larger product design changes that would really benefit the earth. Recycling is good, but repair is noble.

Children at artisanal mine image by Julien Harneis/Wikimedia. Images of Apple’s Daisy and recycling lab via Apple.

[bulkmentor]

Read Our Unbiased Alpha Monster Advanced Review – Does it Work?

Alpha Monster Advanced is a dietary supplement meant to increase testosterone and improve workouts, stamina, and nitric muscle growth in men who want an all-natural hormone boost.

This T-booster is famous for making bold claims. We’re here to take an in-depth look to see if they can make good on their promises to improve your performances in the gym and the bedroom.

Read on to learn the truth about Alpha Monster Advanced before you buy.

Why do you need a T-booster?

There are tons of reasons guys choose to add T-boosters to supplement their workout and diet routines.

Ask yourself: do you want an extra boost of energy? Something to make your workouts more explosive and effective? Do you feel like you’re not where you want to be physically, despite going hard at the gym and eating right? Do you need more stamina in the bedroom? Then a T-booster might be the kick you need to get things right.

Testosterone is a hugely important hormone. It’s what gives us strength and allows our muscles to grow after lifting weights. A deficiency means overall lower stamina, energy, and power, both in the gym and in the sheets.

That’s where T-boosters come in – they’re usually a blend of vitamins and minerals to help raise testosterone and provide other benefits. These might include lowering cholesterol and supporting prostate health.

As we age, testosterone declines. This makes it harder to build and sustain muscle mass. Stamina decreases, passion wanes, and strength goes down. A good T-booster will help you to counteract the effects of aging when used with a diligent exercise routine and diet.

They’re no miracle pill. But they can help give you the boost you need to work out harder.

Who can take this product?

T-boosters are most commonly used by guys over the age of 30. This is when testosterone in the body naturally begins to drop. But they can be taken by any guy who wants a jump to his testosterone levels.

Alpha Monster Advanced supplement is meant for men who already regularly hit the gym. It claims to help you have better, more effective workouts without having to put in the extra grind time.

Getting better results without having to put in the work? That’s a claim that’s almost too good to be true. Guys should always be aware of being tricked when picking a T-booster. There are even scams claiming certain products were featured on shows like Shark Tank when they never were. If you don’t already lift weights and eat right, then don’t expect a T-booster to transform you.

Women can take T-boosters to encourage muscle growth and boost energy, too. However, they should consult with a doctor first to make sure it’s safe to increase testosterone levels.

No one under the age of 18 should take any testosterone supplement. Alpha Monster Advanced shouldn’t be taken by anyone with heart or liver problems, hypertension, or if you are pregnant or nursing. Anyone taking regular medications should consult with a doctor for potential drug interactions. Finally, this supplement should never be taken past its expiration date.

What are the benefits?

The general promise of all T-boosters is to increase testosterone, which leads to more energy. But Alpha Monster Advanced claims it can do that and more because of its all-natural formulation. Here’s what this pill says it can do for you:

Increase free testosterone levels

Improve energy levels

Make it easier to build muscle mass

Increase sex drive and endurance

Burn fat

Increase confidence

That’s a lot of big promises. But does Alpha Monster Advanced live up to the hype? We’ll start by breaking down the ingredients and looking at what guys who’ve used it have to say.

What are the ingredients?

The official website does not list ingredients. It only makes claims towards the pills being an all-natural alternative to traditional T-booster formulas.

Alright, let’s go over the Alpha Monster Advanced ingredients list one by one. These ingredients are all lumped together into one blend. This is called the Flow Viv MAX-TEXT Blend.

Horny goat weed extract – Thought to help with blood flow, circulation, and sexual health

Tongkat ali extract – Taken to improve sexual health and boost energy and stamina

Saw palmetto extract – Typically used as a treatment for enlarged prostates

Orchic substance – Otherwise known as bull testicle extract; some claim it’s a good source of testosterone, but there’s zero evidence for this

Wild yam extract – May help with sex drive and inflammation

Sarsaparilla – Thought to increase testosterone, but again, there’s no evidence

Nettle extract – Used to encourage prostate health, reduce inflammation, and boost recovery times

Boron amino acid chelate – Supports bone health

It’s missing a few things that most other testosterone supplements have. Actually, it’s missing a lot of things. Namely, vitamins and minerals, outside of some calcium that isn’t included under the blend umbrella.

While there are as many supplement skeptics as there are supplements out there, pretty much all of the ingredients in Alpha Monster Advanced are well-known to be ineffective. Even if some of them have actual effects, none of them can directly increase testosterone, none of them can burn fat, and none of them can make it easier to build muscle. There have been claims that combining Alpha Monster Advanced and apple cider vinegar promotes weight loss. We’ve found no evidence of this, either.

The entire Flow Viv MAX-TEXT Blend is only 1,482 mg per dose and a proprietary blend, so we don’t know how much of each ingredient is in each capsule. That being said, for the stuff that is common to other T-boosters, like the horny goat weed, we don’t even know if there’s a full standard dose size included in a serving. Considering most other T-boosters have at least 2,000 mg per serving, it’s safe to assume that these pills lack the potency to make a true difference and follow-through on their explosive claims.

Has it worked for other guys?

A quick internet search will bring you tons of reviews complaining that Alpha Monster Advanced does nothing. That being said, there are reviews from guys who’ve claimed to see results while taking it, but user reviews are hard to come by, and there are no real in-depth reviews from men who have taken it and documented their results. Compared to other T-boosters with a history of success and considering the weak formulation in these pills, we’re going to have to say Alpha Monster Advanced probably doesn’t work.

It’s important to note that there is little scientific evidence to back up the efficacy of the ingredients in this supplement. Outside of the calcium and boron, nothing has been proven to have any positive effect on the body. This is especially true because of the puny dosage sizes.

How long does it take to work?

Results always vary, but Alpha Monster Advanced claims that users should see results after 90 days of consistent use at the recommended maximum dosage. One bottle of 60 capsules will last 15 days if taken at full strength (which is two pills, twice a day). But, as we said, no one has been able to provide a detailed story about their experience with this supplement, so we can’t be sure of anything.

What are the side effects?

Alpha Monster claims there are no side effects to taking this booster, as it contains natural ingredients. It’s also hard to find user reviews that list side effects, but some have noted that taking it leads to an increase in perspiration.

Because the major ingredients are part of a proprietary blend, we can’t say for sure if there’s enough of any one ingredient to have an effect, intended or not.

Common side effects of some of the individual ingredients in the Flow Viv MAX-TEXT Blend include upset stomach, dry mouth, and drops in blood pressure. If you take this supplement and notice any side effects, contact your doctor immediately.

Where can I buy it?

Well, you can’t buy it anymore. The official Alpha Monster Advanced website has been pulled, and it’s almost impossible to find a reseller offering the actual supplement and not a fake. It was only ever available for purchase online through a free trial and a subscription plan. Now that it’s disappeared, there is no reliable way to purchase Alpha Monster Advanced any longer.

You won’t find it in retail stores like GNC. Beware if you try looking it up on eBay or Amazon. It’ll be hard to tell if you’re getting the real product or not. And honestly, it’s probably not worth the effort.

A scam or the real thing?

Whether or not this T-booster actually works, it’s important to note that many consider Alpha Monster Advanced a scam just because of the way it’s priced. Initially, you could only get it as part of a subscription plan for $89.99 a bottle. But even the number of days in a subscription cycle was never made clear.

You could end up paying almost $180 a month if you wanted to take the max recommended dose. That’s crazily overpriced for a T-booster that’s already lacking in potency. Those who started with the free trial found their cards charged with no notice.

So, for reasons unknown, Alpha Monster Advanced has actually been pulled from the market. Their website was taken down and links to their free trial no longer work. Now, the only way to get a bottle is perhaps by trawling Amazon for a rare listing. But honestly, you’re better off if you just click here to read about the best T-boosters out there that have real ingredients, real user reviews, and that really work.

from Bulk Mentor https://bulkmentor.com/alpha-monster-advanced-review/

[onlyxfools]

Laptop For Games - Ways To Locate Best Gaming Laptops

Who are gamers? There are several computer gamers searching for gaming laptops. College students use it to enjoy preferred computer games. Super gamers look for incredibly effective gaming machines to maxout high details in the current video games. A few other people just intend to locate a gaming laptop computer to deal with some details games under their budgets. Different people have the different spending plans and demands for a gaming laptop Exactly what are gaming laptops? A gaming laptop computer's performance is much better than other laptops in playing computer games. Gaming laptops have much better CPU, memory, GPU combination so typically sets you back even more money. How you can discover the best gaming laptops? Equipment technologies grow rapidly, it's impossible to follow all the most recent updates in innovations, also for a IT expert. Some individuals can obtain references from pals who recognize laptops well, however most individuals have to identify all on their own. Discussion forum message, Google and also review articles are great sources to figure out what laptops benefit gaming. In fact, finding a gaming laptop computer is extremely easy. If you adhere to the actions I make certain you can find a good gaming laptop computer to fit your demand, no matter you have the any knowledge about laptop prior to or not. 1. Allocate the gaming laptop computer. The rate for best gaming laptop under 50000 varies from less than $1,000 to $4,000 or perhaps a lot more in different brands. So the first thing is to learn exactly what is the affordable rate for a gaming laptop computer. Currently the minimum price for a gaming laptop is around $650. Some laptops are more pricey compared to others such as MAC. Typically, the more cash you spend, the better efficiency( or service supplied) a gaming laptop will have. Allow's state you have a spending plan of $1,400 for gaming laptop, so you could establish the price range for $650 - $1,400. 2. What video games you intend to have fun with? It is a second crucial problem for acquiring a gaming laptop computer. There are 2D as well as 3D games. 2D games( like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) just requires a quick CPU as well as some memories to run smoothly as well as most laptop today will certainly do the job. 3D video games( WOW, Crysis, COD ...) require a powerful visuals card (GPU) to take care of the difficult real-time estimations in the 3D games. Various graphic cards have various efficiencies in playing different 3D games. There are 2 major GPU Giants there: Nvidia and ATI. Both of them have a serial models of graphic cards for various gaming needs If you are going to maxout all information in the latest FPS games such as Crysis, you have to obtain a high-level visuals card. If you feel that playing basic video games smoothly, and playing the current games in low-medium effects are acceptable, there are additionally a number of medium-level visuals cards available for you to pick. Essentially, the a lot more powerful a GPU( visuals handling system) is, the even more loan you will spend. By determining your requirements you will save loan. Not everyone require a super gaming machine. Do not utilize rockets if you just want to capture a bird. 3. Specific demands. Everybody has his/her favorite brand. Some individuals like Intel CPUs while others favor AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like tv dimension while others choose big screen. There are likewise a few other choices such as size of hard drive, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, audio card, shades as well as weight. Yet bear in mind that gaming capability is your first concern. Any of your selections will be great as long as you follow the step 1 and also step 2. 4. when and where to purchase Obviously you could purchase a laptop anytime you like. Sometimes you conserve loan if you decide to get in a promo duration with some excellent vouchers. There are also some people there will certainly say: "I want to wait on the rate to drop down ..." Nevertheless, every dime you spend deserves for its value. If you have an excellent spending plan as well as don't want to wait also long, why not appreciating the advanced technologies in most recent gaming while other individuals are still in waiting? There is no end answer for inquiry "which laptop is the very best for gaming?" If it benefits you, after that go for it. There are two types of laptop vendors: manufacturers( Dell, HP ...) and resellers. ( Finest Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples ...). You could purchase laptops from them online or in store. Generally producers give more personalization selections as well as resellers give the items in 'exactly what you see is exactly what you get'. If you wish to personalize laptop with your options, simply buy it from producers directly. If you are not acquainted with laptop computer and also do not know what laptop computer to pick, just tell representatives from resellers what you intend to make with the laptop computer and typically they will certainly provide some useful suggestions for you. Before any acquiring, you should have some basic ideas of what laptop computer you need. It will certainly be significantly handy if you do a little research on Net by going to laptop evaluation websites. Actually, discovering a gaming laptop is a fascinating process as opposed to a tough job. It is not as tough as we assumed in the past. Every gamer could obtain the very best gaming laptop for playing wonderful games

[nickcu]

Laptop computer For Games - Ways To Locate Best Gaming Laptops

Who are gamers? There are lots of pc players looking for gaming laptops. College students use it to appreciate favorite computer games. Super players search for incredibly effective gaming machines to maxout high information in the most up to date video games. Some other individuals simply want to find a gaming laptop to handle some certain video games under their budgets. Various individuals have the different spending plans as well as demands for a gaming laptop computer Exactly what are gaming laptops? A gaming laptop computer's efficiency is much better compared to various other laptops in playing computer games. Gaming laptops have better CPU, memory, GPU combination so usually costs even more money. Ways to discover the most effective gaming laptops? Hardware innovations grow rapidly, it's impossible to follow all the most up to date updates in innovations, also for a IT master. Some individuals can get references from friends who recognize laptops well, yet the majority of people need to figure out all by themselves. Discussion forum message, Google as well as review articles are great sources to discover what laptops benefit gaming. Actually, locating a gaming laptop is extremely simple. If you comply with the actions I make certain you can discover an excellent gaming laptop to fit your demand, no matter you have the any type of expertise about laptop prior to or otherwise. 1. Allocate the gaming laptop computer. The price for best gaming laptop under 40000 differs from less than $1,000 to $4,000 or even a lot more in various brand names. So the first thing is to figure out just what is the budget-friendly rate for a gaming laptop computer. Currently the minimum rate for a gaming laptop is around $650. Some laptops are extra costly compared to others such as MAC. Typically, the more cash you spend, the much better efficiency( or service given) a gaming laptop will have. Allow's claim you have a spending plan of $1,400 for gaming laptop computer, so you can set the price range for $650 - $1,400. 2. What video games you want to play with? It is a 2nd important concern for purchasing a gaming laptop. There are 2D as well as 3D video games. 2D games( like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) just needs a rapid CPU as well as some memories to run efficiently and most laptop today will get the job done. 3D games( WOW, Crysis, COD ...) require an effective graphic card (GPU) to manage the complex real-time computations in the 3D games. Various visuals cards have various performances in playing various 3D video games. There are two major GPU Giants there: Nvidia and also ATI. Both of them have a serial models of graphic cards for different gaming needs If you are mosting likely to maxout all details in the latest FPS games such as Crysis, you have to obtain a high-level graphic card. If you really feel that playing general video games smoothly, and also playing the latest video games in low-medium impacts serve, there are additionally a lot of medium-level graphic cards offered for you to select. Primarily, the much more effective a GPU( visuals processing unit) is, the more money you will spend. By recognizing your requirements you will conserve loan. Not everyone need an extremely gaming machine. Don't use projectiles if you just want to capture a bird. 3. Certain needs. Everybody has his/her favored brand. Some people like Intel CPUs while others like AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like small screen size while others choose big screen. There are likewise other options such as dimension of hard disk, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, audio card, shades and also weight. But keep in mind that gaming ability is your first top priority. Any one of your selections will certainly be fine as long as you adhere to the step 1 and also action 2. 4. when and where to purchase Naturally you can get a laptop anytime you like. Occasionally you save cash if you opt to buy in a promo period with some great vouchers. There are also some people there will certainly state: "I would like to wait for the cost to fall ..." Nonetheless, every cent you spend deserves for its worth. If you have a good budget and also don't intend to wait too long, why not appreciating the sophisticated innovations in most recent gaming while other people are still in waiting? There is no end answer for inquiry "which laptop is the very best for gaming?" If it benefits you, after that go for it. There are two sorts of laptop sellers: makers( Dell, HP ...) as well as resellers. ( Best Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples ...). You can purchase laptops from them on-line or in store. Typically producers supply more personalization selections and also resellers provide the items in 'just what you see is what you obtain'. If you wish to tailor laptop with your choices, just buy it from makers straight. If you are not knowledgeable about laptop computer and don't know what laptop to pick, simply tell representatives from resellers what you want to do with the laptop as well as generally they will give some beneficial recommendations for you. Before any type of buying, you should have some basic ideas of exactly what laptop you need. It will certainly be considerably handy if you do a little study on Net by checking out laptop computer review websites. In fact, locating a gaming laptop is an interesting procedure rather than a tough job. It is not as tough as we assumed in the past. Every gamer could obtain the very best gaming laptop computer for playing fantastic video games

[tristallan]

Laptop For Games - How You Can Discover Best Gaming Laptops

Who are gamers? There are several computer gamers trying to find gaming laptops. University student utilize it to appreciate preferred pc video games. Super gamers search for extremely effective gaming machines to maxout high information in the latest games. Some other individuals just wish to locate a gaming laptop computer to deal with some specific games under their spending plans. Different people have the different spending plans and also requirements for a gaming laptop Exactly what are gaming laptops? A gaming laptop computer's efficiency is much better than various other laptops in playing pc games. best gaming laptop under 50000 have much better CPU, memory, GPU combination so typically costs more cash. The best ways to find the most effective gaming laptops? Equipment modern technologies proliferate, it's impossible to adhere to all the most up to date updates in technologies, even for a IT guru. Some people could get recommendations from friends that recognize laptops well, yet most people have to find out all by themselves. Online forum message, Google as well as review articles are wonderful resources to find out exactly what laptops are good for gaming. In fact, discovering a gaming laptop is really easy. If you comply with the actions I'm sure you could find a good gaming laptop computer to fit your need, no matter you have the any knowledge concerning laptop prior to or otherwise. 1. Budget for the gaming laptop computer. The price for gaming laptops differs from less than $1,000 to $4,000 or perhaps extra in various brand names. So the first thing is to figure out what is the affordable rate for a gaming laptop. Now the minimal cost for a gaming laptop is around $650. Some laptops are extra pricey compared to others such as MAC. Generally, the even more loan you spend, the better efficiency( or service given) a gaming laptop will have. Allow's state you have a spending plan of $1,400 for gaming laptop, so you can establish the rate array for $650 - $1,400. 2. What games you intend to have fun with? It is a 2nd crucial issue for acquiring a gaming laptop. There are 2D and also 3D games. 2D games( like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) simply requires a fast CPU as well as some memories to run smoothly as well as most laptop today will certainly do the job. 3D video games( WOW, Crysis, COD ...) need an effective visuals card (GPU) to deal with the complicated real-time computations in the 3D video games. Different graphic cards have different performances in playing various 3D games. There are 2 major GPU Giants there: Nvidia and also ATI. Both of them have a serial models of graphic cards for different gaming needs If you are going to maxout all information in the current FPS games such as Crysis, you need to get a high-level graphic card. If you really feel that playing general games smoothly, and also playing the most up to date games in low-medium results are acceptable, there are additionally a bunch of medium-level visuals cards offered for you to select. Essentially, the a lot more powerful a GPU( visuals handling system) is, the more loan you will certainly spend. By determining your requirements you will certainly conserve money. Not everyone require an incredibly gaming machine. Don't make use of rockets if you just intend to catch a bird. 3. Specific requirements. Every person has his/her favorite brand name. Some people like Intel CPUs while others favor AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like small screen dimension while others prefer big screen. There are likewise a few other choices such as size of hard disk drive, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, audio card, shades as well as weight. But keep in mind that gaming capability is your very first concern. Any of your selections will be great as long as you adhere to the step 1 and also action 2. 4. when as well as where to acquire Of course you can buy a laptop computer anytime you such as. Occasionally you save loan if you decide to acquire in a promo duration with some good discount coupons. There are additionally some individuals there will certainly say: "I wish to wait for the cost to fall ..." Nonetheless, every penny you spend deserves for its value. If you have a great budget plan as well as don't wish to wait also long, why not delighting in the innovative innovations in newest gaming while other individuals are still in waiting? There is no end answer for question "which laptop computer is the most effective for gaming?" If it benefits you, then go for it. There are two types of laptop computer sellers: producers( Dell, HP ...) and resellers. ( Best Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples ...). You can acquire laptops from them on-line or in store. Usually producers supply more modification choices and also resellers give the items in 'exactly what you see is what you get'. If you want to personalize laptop with your choices, just buy it from manufacturers directly. If you are not aware of laptop as well as aren't sure just what laptop computer to choose, just inform agents from resellers what you intend to make with the laptop and typically they will certainly offer some helpful recommendations for you. Prior to any purchasing, you should have some keynotes of what laptop computer you require. It will be substantially helpful if you do a little research on Web by visiting laptop computer review sites. Actually, discovering a gaming laptop is an interesting procedure instead of a laborious. It is not as tough as we believed before. Every gamer could obtain the most effective gaming laptop for playing wonderful video games

[scream-at-thedrunk3nmoon]

Laptop For Games - The Best Ways To Find Finest Gaming Laptops

Who are gamers? There are numerous computer gamers seeking gaming laptops. University student use it to delight in favorite pc games. Super players search for extremely effective gaming machines to maxout high information in the most up to date games. Other individuals simply want to discover a gaming laptop to handle some certain games under their spending plans. Various people have the different budgets and also requirements for a gaming laptop computer Just what are best gaming laptop under 50000 ? A gaming laptop computer's efficiency is far better than various other laptops in playing pc games. Gaming laptops have far better CPU, memory, GPU combination so generally costs more cash. How you can locate the most effective gaming laptops? Hardware innovations grow rapidly, it's impossible to follow all the most up to date updates in technologies, also for a IT expert. Some individuals can get referrals from good friends that recognize laptops well, however most individuals need to find out all on their own. Discussion forum message, Google and review articles are wonderful resources to find out what laptops benefit gaming. Actually, finding a gaming laptop computer is extremely simple. If you follow the steps I make sure you can discover an excellent gaming laptop to fit your demand, no matter you have the any understanding concerning laptop computer before or otherwise. 1. Allocate the gaming laptop computer. The rate for gaming laptops differs from less than $1,000 to $4,000 or perhaps a lot more in different brand names. So the first thing is to figure out just what is the inexpensive rate for a gaming laptop computer. Currently the minimum rate for a gaming laptop computer is around $650. Some laptops are a lot more expensive than others such as MAC. Generally, the more money you invest, the much better performance( or service offered) a gaming laptop will have. Let's claim you have a budget of $1,400 for gaming laptop computer, so you can establish the cost array for $650 - $1,400. 2. What video games you wish to have fun with? It is a 2nd important problem for getting a gaming laptop computer. There are 2D and 3D games. 2D games( like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) simply requires a quick CPU and also some memories to run efficiently and most laptop today will do the job. 3D video games( WOW, Crysis, COD ...) call for an effective graphic card (GPU) to take care of the complex real-time calculations in the 3D video games. Various graphic cards have different efficiencies in playing various 3D video games. There are two major GPU Giants there: Nvidia and ATI. Both of them have a serial versions of graphic cards for various gaming requirements If you are mosting likely to maxout all information in the most up to date FPS games such as Crysis, you have to obtain a top-level visuals card. If you really feel that playing basic games efficiently, and playing the latest video games in low-medium impacts are acceptable, there are likewise a lot of medium-level graphic cards readily available for you to choose. Primarily, the a lot more powerful a GPU( graphic handling system) is, the even more cash you will certainly spend. By identifying your demands you will conserve money. Not everybody need a very gaming machine. Don't use projectiles if you just wish to catch a bird. 3. Details demands. Every person has his/her favorite brand name. Some individuals like Intel CPUs while others prefer AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like tv size while others like big screen. There are also a few other selections such as size of hard disk, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, audio card, shades and weight. However keep in mind that gaming capability is your initial concern. Any one of your choices will certainly be great as long as you comply with the step 1 and step 2. 4. when and also where to buy Obviously you could acquire a laptop anytime you such as. Sometimes you save loan if you choose to buy in a promo duration with some excellent promo codes. There are likewise some people there will claim: "I want to wait for the price to drop down ..." However, every dime you spend deserves for its worth. If you have a great spending plan and also do not want to wait as well long, why not taking pleasure in the innovative technologies in most current gaming while other individuals are still in waiting? There is no end answer for question "which laptop computer is the very best for gaming?" If it benefits you, then go for it. There are 2 sorts of laptop vendors: producers( Dell, HP ...) and resellers. ( Ideal Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples ...). You could get laptops from them online or in store. Typically suppliers give more personalization selections and resellers offer the items in 'exactly what you see is just what you get'. If you wish to personalize laptop with your selections, just buy it from makers straight. If you are not acquainted with laptop and don't know exactly what laptop to select, simply tell agents from resellers what you want to do with the laptop computer and also usually they will certainly provide some valuable pointers for you. Prior to any type of acquiring, you must have some basic ideas of what laptop you need. It will certainly be significantly handy if you do a little research study on Net by visiting laptop computer review websites. Really, locating a gaming laptop is a fascinating procedure rather than a laborious. It is not as hard as we thought in the past. Every gamer can obtain the best gaming laptop for playing fantastic video games

[poptartsandpinkmilk]

Laptop For Gamings - How to Locate Finest Gaming Laptops

That are gamers? There are numerous computer players trying to find gaming laptops. University student use it to appreciate favorite computer video games. Super players look for incredibly powerful gaming machines to maxout high details in the latest games. Some other individuals just intend to locate a gaming laptop computer to take care of some particular games under their spending plans. Different people have the different spending plans and also requirements for a gaming laptop computer What are gaming laptops? A gaming laptop's performance is better than various other laptops in playing pc video games. best gaming laptop under 50000 have better CPU, memory, GPU mix so usually costs even more cash. Ways to discover the most effective gaming laptops? Hardware innovations grow rapidly, it's impossible to comply with all the most up to date updates in modern technologies, even for a IT guru. Some people could get recommendations from pals who recognize laptops well, however the majority of people need to figure out all on their own. Discussion forum post, Google as well as review articles are great sources to discover exactly what laptops benefit gaming. Actually, discovering a gaming laptop is very simple. If you follow the actions I make certain you could locate an excellent gaming laptop to fit your demand, despite you have the any kind of knowledge about laptop computer prior to or otherwise. 1. Allocate the gaming laptop computer. The rate for gaming laptops differs from less than $1,000 to $4,000 or even more in various brand names. So the first thing is to discover what is the economical cost for a gaming laptop computer. Now the minimal cost for a gaming laptop is around $650. Some laptops are a lot more expensive than others such as MAC. Typically, the more loan you spend, the better efficiency( or solution offered) a gaming laptop will have. Let's claim you have a budget of $1,400 for gaming laptop, so you can set the price array for $650 - $1,400. 2. What games you intend to play with? It is a second important concern for acquiring a gaming laptop computer. There are 2D and 3D games. 2D games( like Starcraft, RedAlert2 ...) just requires a rapid CPU and some memories to run efficiently and most laptop today will do the job. 3D video games( WOW, Crysis, COD ...) call for a powerful graphic card (GPU) to handle the complicated real-time calculations in the 3D games. Different visuals cards have different performances in playing various 3D games. There are two major GPU Giants there: Nvidia and ATI. Both of them have a serial versions of graphic cards for various gaming needs If you are mosting likely to maxout all details in the latest FPS games such as Crysis, you need to get a high-level visuals card. If you really feel that playing basic video games efficiently, and playing the current video games in low-medium effects serve, there are additionally a lot of medium-level visuals cards available for you to pick. Essentially, the more effective a GPU( visuals processing device) is, the even more money you will certainly spend. By determining your requirements you will certainly save cash. Not everybody need a very gaming machine. Don't make use of projectiles if you just want to capture a bird. 3. Certain requirements. Everyone has his/her favorite brand name. Some people like Intel CPUs while others favor AMD. Some like Nvidia GPU while others like ATI. Some like small screen dimension while others favor cinema. There are additionally other options such as size of hard disk drive, systems pre-installed, memory, optical drive, audio card, colors as well as weight. However bear in mind that gaming ability is your initial top priority. Any of your choices will certainly be fine as long as you comply with the action 1 and also step 2. 4. when and also where to buy Obviously you could purchase a laptop anytime you such as. Sometimes you conserve loan if you prefer to get in a promotion period with some good discount coupons. There are likewise some individuals there will certainly say: "I want to wait on the price to fall ..." Nevertheless, every cent you spend is worth for its value. If you have an excellent budget and do not wish to wait too long, why not enjoying the innovative technologies in newest gaming while other individuals are still in waiting? There is no end answer for inquiry "which laptop is the best for gaming?" If it is good for you, then go for it. There are 2 sorts of laptop computer sellers: suppliers( Dell, HP ...) as well as resellers. ( Finest Buy, Newegg, Circuit City, Staples ...). You could buy laptops from them online or in store. Normally manufacturers provide even more modification choices and resellers supply the items in 'what you see is just what you get'. If you want to customize laptop with your choices, just buy it from manufacturers directly. If you are not aware of laptop and also have no idea what laptop to choose, just inform agents from resellers what you wish to perform with the laptop computer and also usually they will certainly offer some helpful pointers for you. Prior to any purchasing, you must have some keynotes of exactly what laptop computer you require. It will certainly be greatly practical if you do a little study on Net by visiting laptop computer review sites. In fact, discovering a gaming laptop computer is a fascinating procedure rather than a laborious. It is not as difficult as we thought previously. Every gamer could obtain the very best gaming laptop for playing wonderful video games